Perfectly Taangy
by CrossCountryChick16
Summary: Just a whole bunch of Taang oneshots 8D. Could be modern or ATLA world, I write both. Enjoy! If you have an idea for a Taang oneshot, tell me via review or PM and I'll write it!
1. Clubbing

**Taang oneshot about those rascally teenagers. **

**Disclaimer: Not a chance.**

Toph's POV

"Can't I wear pants for this?" I cross my arms defiantly and try to pull away from Katara's iron grip on the hem of my...ughh, _dress_. "It's not like I'm looking for attention."

"Maybe so," Katara comments as she straightens the wrinkles in the forest green frock. "But you'll definitely turn some heads. And who knows? Maybe you'll like being in the spotlight."

"Pfft, yeah right. I let you have your fun with the, ugh, _makeup_, so why can't I pick out what clothes I'm wearing?"

"Well, you didn't-"

"Why am I even letting you drag me to this place anyway? I hate clubs."

Katara sighs and pulls up the zipper of my dress, which is, big shock there, too big. "What I was _saying_ was that you wouldn't let me touch your hair, so the wardrobe is _mine_." She pulls at the extra fabric of my dress and sighs again. "Would it kill you to gain some weight? This was the smallest size the store had."

I scowl and turn away from her. "Is it my fault that I can eat like Sokka and not gain any weight? We can't all be perfectly curvy, _Katara_."

She smiles, beside herself, and walks over to the closet of her bedroom. Me, Katara, and Suki are heading out to some dance club tonight. Well, _they're_ heading out. I'm being dragged out. Katara and Suki say we're going because they need to get away from their men and I need to get one. I really don't care why we're going; I was against it from the start. Dance clubs are so crowded and loud that it just overpowers my hyperactive ears. I've always preferred just hanging out with friends in someone's basement or wandering the local streets, but _no_.

Sigh. When will Katara and Suki get that I'm an independent woman who doesn't need a guy in my life to be complete? I can take care of myself, by myself. Even if my eyesight isn't _exactly_ 20/20.

Katara comes back from her immense closet holding a pair of white heels. Many intricate straps cover the area where a foot would go, and the thin heel is about three inches high. _Oh, God._

"Sweet Mary mother of Jesus if you expect me to put those on my feet-"

"Yes, I do," Katara interrupts stiffly. "I bought these specifically for you. Plus, you can't even complain! Suki and I are wearing five inch heels!" She forces my small feet into the heels with some difficulty, being that I'm curling my toes in like women from ancient Tang China. But my toes aren't exactly breaking, so there's one shell of good in this sea of awful.

"And that's my fault? I was fine with sneakers and skinny jeans, but you just wouldn't let me be myself, would you, _Sugar Queen_?" With a final grunt of effort, the dreadful shoes are on my feet.

"Oh, how I despise that nickname." She pulls on her own heels to complete her outfit: skintight sleeveless ocean blue dress to match her eyes, thin pearls around her neck, black high heels, her chestnut brown hair cascading down her back in beautiful ripples, like small waves. She'd be getting _a lot_ of attention tonight. Maybe I should tell Sparky...you know, to start shit. What else can I do on a night like this? I like to be entertained.

"Oh, you know you love it," I reply snidely and give her a light punch on the arm. I don't compare with Katara at all, as far as appearances go, not that I care. I'm wearing a plain green dress, the white deathtraps, and I snuck my only piece of jewelry in as well: a small silver bracelet with only one charm, a boulder with the phrase "Rocklike. Be it." engraved in the center. My straight black hair is pulled into its normal messy ponytail, my bangs covering the entirety of my right eye.

She grabs her silver clutch bag and drags me out of the room by my wrist, nearly pulling me to my untimely death. If you ask me, three inches is three too many. "I was hoping you'd grow out of the nick-name phase once you made it to twenty, but obviously-"

"Hey there, Sweetness. Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I'm only nineteen," I say smugly, though the effect is diminished by my wobbly legs.

"That's no excuse, Toph. It's called being mature."

"It's called a mother, Katara. I already have one, _thank you_."

"What are you two arguing about now?"

Katara and I look up to see Suki in a purple frilly thing with silver heels even higher than Katara's on her feet. Her reddish hair is pulled into a semi-elegant yet semi-messy bun and long earrings hang from her earlobes.

"Katara's parent-like antics are getting out of hand," I nearly spit, yanking my wrist from Katara's grasp.

Katara rolls her eyes at me. "Whatever." Her attention turns to Suki. "Look at _you_, you sexy thing!"

"Me? Look at _you_!"

I mimic them to myself, "Look at Toph puke up her dinner." I stick my tongue out at them and turn to walk away, but walk right into a man's chest. _Oh, great. The boys are here. Time to feel short all over again._

"Toph!" Sokka pulls me into a hug so tight that I nearly lost all airflow to my lungs. When he releases me, he sees his sister and girlfriend gushing over each other's outfits. "Suki! You look fantastic!...KATARA! You can't go out like that!"

"I agree."

Zuko's voice comes from behind Sokka, low and husky. He puts his hands into his pockets. "You look too good. I don't want a guy to steal you from me." He stared at Katara with his amber eyes, his left closed just a little bit more than his right due to his large red scar. He hasn't told anyone where he got it from except for maybe Katara.

Speaking of Sweetness, she walks over to Zuko and puts a hand on his chest. "No one could ever steal me from you." I turn away before they kiss.

"Ugh. Spare me!" I nearly spit on the two of them, it's just that gross.

"Tell me about it," says the only voice that I don't truly mind hearing tonight. Light and airy yet still deep in tone, it belongs to a tall lanky guy with shaggy black hair, stormy grey eyes, and the goofiest smile you'd ever see: my best friend Aang

"Total barf fest," I mutter before blowing a piece of my bangs out of my face with a sharp exhale. He nods in agreement.

Aang is the only person besides me in our group of friends who isn't in a relationship. Snoozles has Suki, Sparky has Sweetness, and even moping Mai found love with that Jet guy that we'd all assumed was dead. Aang and me...we have eachother.

_NO_, not like that. We're best friends, and that's all she wrote. However, our friends can't seem to grasp that concept. They think that because Aang and me are the same age, know each other better than anyone else, and like a lot of the same things, that we'd be a good couple.

I don't know if Aang has noticed (he's unobservant like that), but I have, and it's really weird, awkward, and embarrassing: all of our friends are trying to get us together, especially Katara. She didn't say it, but I know the real reason we're going to the club isn't just for a girl's night out. As a matter of fact, she's dragging me out in the hopes that men will swarm me and thus make Aang go on a jealous rampage blah blah blah. Heh, that plan is really going to crash and burn when I sneak out of the club's bathroom window later. Oh, yeah, I've already got an escape plan ready.

Aang stands next to me in his most casual clothes: faded baggy cargo pants with too many pockets to count, worn skate shoes, and his favorite orange hoodie with the blue arrows on the chest, arms, back, and hood. His wardrobe instantly pisses me off.

"Why do you get to dress like that?"

He scratches his head in confusion. "Like what?"

"Like, all casual or whatever. You get to wear your ratty old hoodie while I'm forced to wear this thing." I motion briskly to my unfortunate outfit.

Aang shoots me a sideways glance then looks away. "Oh, you're in a dress? Didn't even notice," he says a little too casually. I can already tell that he's lying (I'm a human lie detector), and the light blush on his cheeks also helps in my conclusion.

"C'mon Twinkles, don't you get all sappy on me." I punch him hard in his shoulder for good measure.

"Wh-what?" He sputters and rubs his shoulder. "Whose getting sappy?"

"Uhm, you, you complete Airhea-"

"AANG LET'S GO! THE JASMINE DRAGON WAITS FOR NO ONE!" Sokka calls obnoxiously from outside, already halfway to his car. Aang gives me a swift and stiff goodbye, his cheeks still slightly pink.

Aang catches up to Sokka and Zuko in milliseconds (hence the nickname "Twinkletoes"). Though he is their equivalent in height, Aang looks nothing like the other two men. With their button-up collared shirts and crisp dark wash jeans, they make Aang look like a homeless man.

I turn back to face Katara and Suki, rejoicing in the fact that their gush-fest is over. "If they're going to the Jasmine Dragon, where are we going?"

Katara and Suki exchange excited glances, making me fear for my life. They yell almost in unison: "THE BOOM BOX!"

"Dear Christ, it even sounds painful."

Aang's POV

I don't know about you, but I hate loud, crowded places. I prefer the fresh, clean, not-overpopulated air of nature, the great outdoors. Yeah, and not having half drunk women practically falling on top of me would help too.

Now I know what you're most likely thinking: _Dude, you're a single guy! Shouldn't you be asking these women to get naked?_

Well, you see, anonymous questioner, I like to think that I'm a classy guy who likes to take it slow and get to know a girl before she starts trying to stick her tongue down my throat (some girl actually tried to do this. Her friend called her Meng or something).

Anyway, I know that hardly anybody (ok, _nobody_) comes to a club to have deep, heavy thoughts, but that's what I think I'm doing right now. I'm having deep, heavy, serious thoughts, about Toph.

Though it may sound sappy (like she said), all I can think about recently is her. I've never ever _ever_ seen her in a dress before, not to mention makeup and heels too. It was really weird...but I kinda liked it. Don't ever tell her I said that; I'd like to have children some day.

Toph is a..._different_ girl. She's her own person, a complete no-nonsense spitfire who won't take anybodies bullshit. She can beat the living crap out of anybody...yes, including me. She likes to walk around without shoes on and she burps like a trucker. She's been known to stick a pinkie in her ear or between her toes when she's bored, but it's all part of her unique character. She's not a girly girl in any way shape or form, and she thinks that dresses and skirts are a conspiracy. She's just...Toph.

But lately, I've been noticing things about her:

The immense amount of shades of green that actually inhabit her eye, rather than the single shade I'd seen from pre-k (when we met) to about eighteen months ago.

The silky paleness of her skin. Though she's short, I'm noticing now that her legs are long, not to mention slender, smooth, and lean. I guess I never noticed before because those legs were usually kicking my ass into the next week.

The way I've only seen her hair down once, and ever since then I've been dying to yank her ponytail out and see her long ebony hair fall from its restraints for a second time. (**A/N: If you want an idea of what her hair looks like, go on deviantart and look up **_**Taang Week: Ring **_**for it up and **_**Beauty**_** for it down**_**.**_** Imagine the bangs are swept over her right eye, but everything else is the same.****All art is****by **_**PochiMochi**_**.) **I'm one of the only people who knows why Toph lets her bangs act as a jet black veil over her right eye. Her hair is beautiful, despite her less than satisfactory efforts to maintain it. In the deepest chambers of my mind, I've also wished that I could touch it. I bet it's soft like silk or a puppy's fur.

The curve of her smile, whether it be cocky, grim, mischievous, or laughing.

The sound of her laughter that suddenly is music to my ears and sends my heart into a tailspin. No wonder I've been trying to make her laugh more often...

"Yo! Aang!" Sokka's yell yanked me out of my thoughts, pulling me roughly back into reality. "You okay? Your eyes got all glazed over."

I run a hand through my hair and push myself off the chair I'd been sitting on. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just bored is all."

Sokka's blue eyes turn to giant disks. "Bored? Aang, do you realize how many girls you could get? Me and Zuko here," he stops and puts an arm around Zuko's shoulder, "we're tied down. But you're a bachelor, dude! Live it up!" He gives me an enthusiastic thumbs-up then turns toward the main bartender, a plump old man seemingly in his seventies with grey sideburns and a bald spot in the back of his head. Zuko seems to know him very well. The older man catches my eye and calls one of the younger bar maids to take over before he makes his way out from behind the bar and over to me.

"Come, young one. I sense you need wisdom that I can give," he says in a kind voice, hands resting on his fat belly. "And we can even have tea!" Without even waiting for me, the man walks towards a door that says "Staff Only".

Cautiously, I follow him to the door, suddenly very intrigued. I push the door open, shocked to find that it's very heavy. "Uh...hello? Old guy who's friends with Zuko?"

I heard a chortle. "I am Iroh, young one, Zuko's uncle. What about you?"

"Aang, Zuko's friend. How'd you know I need help?" No point to beat around the bush.

Iroh lights a lamp on a table and motions for me to sit down. A hot cup of tea waits for me. "I can see a troubled mind from a mile away."

"What, do you have x-ray vision?"

Iroh chuckles. "What? No, no. I saw your facial expression and could tell that you were having some kind of inner turmoil." Iroh takes a sip of his tea and looks me over. "I am getting older and my mind is starting to collapse within itself, but I think I can guess that you are thinking about a woman."

I look at him in awe and take a sip of my own tea: jasmine, perfectly brewed. "How'd you know?"

Iroh smirks. "Senior's intuition."

I smile and lean back in my chair. "Well Iroh, you're 100% on the money with your 'intuition'. But I just don't know why I'm thinking of her. She's been my best friend for years...but suddenly she's all grown up and just so...amazing." I can feel myself drifting away again, drowning in my thoughts.

Iroh laughs lightly. "It's called love, my boy."

I pull back suddenly, knocking over my tea and almost falling backwards in my chair. "M-me? Love T-I mean my best friend? That's...that's crazy..." _Right?_

Iroh takes another small sip of his tea. "Not all love is between lovers, if that what you are thinking. Love exists everywhere in human life: family to family, parents to children, friend to friend. But it is possible you feel this way for your friend. Love is a cruel mistress, creeping up on us and overcoming us when we least expect it." He gets up and disappears for a moment then reappears with paper towels for me to clean up my mess.

I wipe up the spilt tea silently, almost positive that Iroh is sniffling. "So...what should I do?"

Iroh finishes his tea and looks me seriously in the eye. "If you wish to, it would be wise to discover what type of love you are feeling, and to act accordingly."

"So...I should leave this bar full of pretty girls?"

"That's a good start."

I get up quickly and make my way back into the bar. I push the door open, then turn back to the old man with great tea and even better advice. "Thank you, mister Iroh."

Toph's POV

Wanna play a game? Okay, think of the most obnoxious dubstep you've ever heard, mix it with little bits of halfway decent music and a few hundred people screaming their heads off, and you've got what I'm hearing in this club.

Let me tell you, it's _deafening_.

This place smells like the back of a fast food restaurant, the place where garbage is thrown and seagulls and homeless men thrive. Basically, it smells like mad _shit_.

Not to mention I've gotten five drinks in the past hour from this creepy twenty-something . I've made sure to leave them all untouched on the small table next to me. The waiter started to apologize after the third drink, as he, unlike the drunken guy sending me booze, can tell that I'm not only underage, but also uninterested.

Honestly, I'm ready to just walk up to this twat and tell him I'm a lesbian so he'll leave me the _eff_ alone.

I tried escaping through the bathroom, but the line is horrendous. Seriously, it seemed like half the women in the club had to pee/barf at the same time. _The hell?_

Ever since my failed escape, I've been trying to find some kind of back exit. If I try to leave through the front, Katara and Suki will see me and drag me right back in. If only there was a way for me to get out...

Bingo! I see a rusty wooden door near the right rear corner of the club. Only a few people are around it, all most likely burnouts. _Toph, you rule._

After making sure that none of my friends are watching, I weave my way through the crowd, pushing and cursing when necessary, until I make it to the door. The druggies give me weak nods as I walk by. After a quick salute, I push the shockingly _very_ heavy door, trying and failing to use my leg strength because of Katara's goddamn heels. Suddenly, the door opens from the other side.

Now, I don't know if any of you are familiar with Newton's laws. I know I'm not, but I also know that there's one about an object in motion staying in motion, and baby was I in motion.

I felt kind of bad for whoever pulled the door open, as I catapulted right into them. As soon as we landed on the ground, me on top, I new it was a man.

"Hey! Watch it buddy!" I yell angrily as I get up, smoothing out my dress even though I couldn't care less if someone set fire to it.

The guy chuckles at me. I think briefly that he wants to die young. "I'm not your buddy, _guy_."

I both physically and mentally face palm. Of course _he_ caused this. "Goddamn you Aang. You gave me a freaking heart attack."

He smiles apologetically. "Sorry, Toph. I was on my way in to see you. Why'd you leave?"

I adjust my bangs and tighten my ponytail. "It smelt like a hobo eating a week-old Big Mac."

Aang chuckles lightly and motions for me to follow him. "Alrighty then. Lets blow this joint."

I fall into step with him and we make our way out the back parking lot of The Boom Box. _More like the shit box._

"Hey! Hey, Ponytail!" I stop at the slurred male voice and whirl around, knowing he meant me.

"Yes, drunken man?"

The speaker guffaws obnoxiously. I wrinkle my nose at his alcohol scent. Aang grabs my left wrist and tugs.

"C'mon Toph," he says to me, his eyes trained on the drunk. "Let's go."

The greasy man holds up a bottle and stumbles closer to us. I try not to punch Aang when he steps protectively in front of me. The man points his bottle at Aang. The movement was jerky, so some of the liquid spilled onto the asphalt. "Is 'sis guy 'ur boyfrand?"

Aang's eyes widen but his grip on my wrist doesn't lessen. "Uhm, uhh..."

I sigh, exasperated. If it'll get the guy to leave us alone...

Before Aang can say anything, I pull my wrist from his hand and entwine my fingers with his.

Aang's POV

Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. Is Toph...holding my hand? I try very hard not to pee my pants as I feel my face turn into a tomato. _IROH! What kind of love is this?_

"Yup," Toph says with a smug expression. "This geeky guy right here is _my_ geeky guy, so back off, Beer Boy."

_Uhm...who am I again? Do I have a name? What is life?_

Toph squeezes my hand. "Aang, leaving in a huff is pretty hard considering you're not moving," she mutters through gritted teeth.

_Oh, I'm Aang._

I try rub my head sheepishly then remember that my fingers are interlocked with Toph's. "Uhh...Yeah, she's my girlfriend all right. It's not a complete lie!" I pull Toph's hand and we make our way away from the drunk and out of the parking lot.

Once we're a good distance away, to my secret displeasure, Toph releases my hand. "Well that was an event."

I look away and swallow, sure that the heat on my face is visible. "Uhh, yeah, totally."

Toph looks at me strangely and touches my arm with her thin fingers. "You all right Twinkletoes? You're, like, radiating heat and I can almost hear your heartbeat."

I gulp and try not to stare at her dress, her legs, her face, or her uncovered eye. Especially her eye. I feel like if I look into her eye, I'll never be able to look away.

I swallow again and keep my eyes trained on the sidewalk in front of us. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Really?" Toph asks, putting her hands on her hips. She laughs as she continues. "You seem perfectly shitty."

I turn towards her and smirk sideways, suddenly able to swallow my embarrassment. "Says the one who can't walk straight in her own shoes."

She scowls at me, one of her most familiar faces. I expect a punch in the arm, but instead she stops walking and yanks off the heels, now barefoot. "Much better. Now I can walk."

Now that the heels are off, Toph has been reduced to her normal size: about a head shorter than me. I snicker and try to cover my mouth when she glares at me.

"Mind telling me what's so funny?"

I continue sniggering for a full minute until I finally get it under control. "You...you're so _tiny_."

She grabs the hem of my shirt and pulls me to her level. "Say it again," she seethes, her eyes narrowed and fists curled. The whole image is quite comical, being that she looks so fancy and girly but is acting like a mugger.

I look her straight in the jade eye that isn't enveloped by hair, finding myself subconsciously counting the colors in her iris. I smirk cockily and whisper lightly to her, "You're an angry elf."

She looks like she wants to kill me, or neuter me at the very least. But the only thought in my mind is: _seven, eight, nine colors..._

She opens her mouth to release a stinging response, but no words come out. She held my gaze, grey on green. I was hyperaware of our closeness and her warm breath on my face and her bangs tickling my nose as they swung in the wind.

"Uh...Aang?" She asks warily, slowly releasing her death grip on my shirt.

"Hm?"

"What, exactly, are you doing?" She doesn't break my gaze. I'm all too aware that my lips are inches from hers.

I raise my hand slowly towards her face. "Something..." My hand inches closer and closer to her face. I grow more confident the closer Toph allows my hand to get to her face. Eventually, my hand makes contact with her right cheek, just under her bangs.

"Wha?" She breaths out, but she's now transfixed by the severity of my gaze. I think her cheeks are pink.

I shush her and slowly push her bangs out of her face.

Dear Lord, she's gorgeous.

Her face, normally hidden behind her bangs, is completely breathtaking. Smooth white features, hold for her now slightly rosy cheeks. A small button nose, perfectly sized eyes, light pink lips, small ears behind her hair.

But her eyes...he never understood why she hid her right one. It's a light jade color, like the left, but is tinted with grey. The eye seems endless and bottomless, but also lifeless. It's blind, but it's beautiful.

As if an alarm goes off in her head, Toph pulls back and pushes me away, letting her bangs fall in front of her blind eye again. "You know I hate it when people see my blind eye," she says quietly, sounding so un-Toph like. She suddenly punches my gut, hard, knocking my breath away in a different way than she had before. "What the hell Airhead! You know I hate that!"

I keel over for a second, clutching my stomach. I exhale slowly and try to regulate my breathing. "S-sorry. I just...I just wanted to see it."

She crosses her arms and looks away. "Yeah, whatever." She doesn't look at me for a few moments, not even letting me see her working eye, but she suddenly speaks. "Why?"

"Why what?" I've recovered from her punch...somewhat.

She turns her working eye towards me. "Why did you want to see my eye?"

I scratch my head and look away. "Oh...I don't know." _Well...I do...but you'd kill me if I told you._

She blows her bangs up. "Whatever, Twinkles. Just...don't do it again."

"Right."

We stand on the sidewalk for a while in complete silence, not sure where to go or what to say. She kicks a rock with her bare foot.

"So..." she says absentmindedly. "Whatcha' wanna do?"

I kick the rock back to her. "We could...go to the place?"

And with that, the awkward moment is dead. "Just like old times?" Toph asks with a happy grin.

I nod and smile wide. "_Just_ like old times."

Toph's POV

What the _hell_ is going through Aang's head? First he's normal, then he seems like he has a fever and his heart is in hyper drive, then he decides that he wants to look at my blind eye. _Uhm...What?_ That boy is wacked. Whatever, he's never been normal.

Anywho, those of you wondering what "the place" is, I'll give you a brief summary.

Being that we grew up in this town, Aang and I know every nook, cranny, crevice, and hiding place around. Our favorite place of them all was (and still is) near the shore of a small lake. The area includes a stone bench looking out onto the moonlit lake, a tree hanging over the bench, and an abandoned house opposite the lake. Aang decided that the bench and the tree are part of what the backyard of the old house would be, but it doesn't matter if we hang there because nobody has lived there since the eighties.

We reach the place in a matter of minutes, being that we know about twenty shortcuts to get there. I can't help but smile at the memories we've had at this lakeside hangout: playing like monkeys in the tree, climbing around on the bench, even swimming in the lake when the weather permitted (though swimming wasn't and still isn't my favorite thing in the world.) Then, as we got older, our antics got more mild. Sitting on the bench together, lounging on the grass (usually with food), just talking for hours. We've never permitted anyone else to come to our lakeside place; it's _ours_.

We make our way through the large bush that acts as a barrier for our little hangout spot. Sure enough, it's exactly how I remember it from the last time I was here. Aang smiles lightly and walks over to the bench.

"C'mon," he says, his smile growing. "I snagged us the best seats in the house."

He sits down on the bench and I join him with quite a bit of difficulty. "Jesus Twinkles, move your fat ass over. I've got no room over here!"

"Toph, if I move anymore I'll be on the ground," he replies with a light chuckle.

"Wow...has it seriously been that long since the last time we were here?"

"Yeah, I guess so." We look out onto the moonlit lake for a few minutes, drowning in our nostalgia and enjoying the silent minute in each other's company. Suddenly, a light, music like sound comes from across the lake, along with a few flashes of light.

"Hey, look," Aang says as he points to the house. "I guess someone moved into those houses across the lake."

"Yup." I wriggle around to try to get room to sit, but cant on the impossibly small bench. "And apparently, their throwing a house party." The music gradually gets louder until the song travels all the way across the lake, crisp and clear.

"Hmm," Aang chuckles.

"What?"

He looks over at me and grins. "What, you don't remember this song?"

I listen closely and slowly recognize the lyrics. "Of course I do. MCR is godly."

He laughs again and stands up, walking closer to the lake and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. Remember, it was the first song the D.J. played at Homecoming, and-"

"We were the only ones dancing." We finish together. I grin and join him by the lake.

"Our class had absolutely no taste in music. I still don't get the appeal of that one band. You know, where the guys wear skin-tight leopard-skin pants?"

"I don't know, Toph." Aang grins mischievously at me and strikes a ridiculous pose. "They were sexy and they knew it."

I laugh and smack his back so hard he almost topples over into the water. "Riiiight, Twinkletoes; whatever you say."

He regains his footing and stands next to me again. That thought drags me into my memories, all of my memories, that I share with Aang. Loosening the bolts in our English teacher Mr. Paku's chair when he wasn't looking, then catching him trying to sit in his chair on video. Putting super glue on the flagpole that Sokka used to lean on to "get" the ladies' attention, then watching him struggle to separate himself from the metal pole. Putting wet paint on the away team's bleachers at Aang's track meets so they'd all have green butts. Ahh...the good old days.

As I think back, I try to enjoy the peaceful area we're in, but I can't being that I he's practically burning holes in the side of my face with his gaze.

"What?" I ask him, laughter evident in my voice.

"What what?" I turn to him to see him still staring at me, his goofiest smile spattered across his face.

"Why are you staring at m-?"

"Do you wanna dance?" He asks suddenly, his cheeks instantly turning red. I can still hear the sound of My Chemical Romance from across then lake.

_They could care less as long as someone'll bleed!_

"Uhh...sure," I say warily, still completely in the dark.

Aang scratches the back of his head and looks away. "Sorry for asking I know it's kind of awkward being that we're best friends and all but-" he sputters.

"Aang," I laugh, my hands crossed and my head facing downward. "I said yes."

He stops babbling and looks me over, his face going from flustered to confused to happy in a quarter of a second. "That's what I thought you said," he says with a sly grin on his face.

I snort amusedly. "Yeah, right. You were a babbling idiot."

"Yesss." He spins around and moves so he's behind me, his mouth at my ear. "But I'm _your_ babbling idiot."

I spin on him and punch him playfully in the gut. "You know it Twinkles."

Instead of answering, he spins around again and starts to dance in his own nerdy, weird, for lack of a better word, Aang-ish way. His arms and legs are flailing in some sort of twister of movements as he circles me. 'C'mon Toph! Don't leave me hanging here!"

"I was never planning on it." I'm about to jump in with him when the hardcore electric guitar riffs and drumming fall into piano and the slow strumming of an acoustic guitar; our song's over.

Aang halts his ridiculous flailing and looks over at the house. "Oh, well. I guess that's over with."

I shrug. "We can still dance, Twinkletoes. Just not like monkeys like you seem to prefer to."

He glances over at me, his stormy eyes confused. "Really?"

I grin widely and hold out my hand. "Shut up and twirl me."

At my invitation, Aang grasps my hand and lets his free hand land on my waist. "As you wish, milady," he says jokingly in a terrible English accent as he starts spinning us in circles.

I put my free hand, with difficulty, on his shoulder. "Certainly, good sir," I respond in my equally terrible attempt at an accent. We spin in circles for a while, swaying to the music, laughing because this type of thing is so foreign to the two of us. He dips me so low I nearly hit my head on the grass, I punch his ribs so hard in retaliation that he nearly coughs up his internal organs, but he doesn't seem to care.

He releases my hip and I release his shoulder and he spins me, his left hand still connected to my right. When he pulls me back in, I bump into his chest haphazardly and end up pushing him to the ground very similarly to how I'd fallen onto him behind the club.

When I open my eyes after the initial crash and fall, my good eye sees him under me, his face red and his eyes wide, as if he's thinking. I seem to not be thinking, because the next thing I know I've planted my lips onto his. My only excuse: Meh, I just felt like doing it. Do I really need an excuse?

We stay that way for a few moments in the kiss I, for some reason, initiated. I feel his hands creep to my tiny waist as my hands grasp his head around his huge ears. Seriously, they have their own gravitational pull. NASA has them on file.

As if attached to a rubber band, I snap back into reality and I separate myself from him completely. My synapses start to work again and the cogs in my previously shorted put brain start to turn again. What in the _hell_ did I just do?

"I'm sorry Toph," he starts, already blaming himself for what just happened, like he does for almost everything.

"_You're_ sorry?" I ask loudly. "That was all my fault! That was the weirdest, most unnatural, most untimely thing I could have done, and I did it!" I run my hand through my hair and try to smooth my erratic breathing and heartbeat. I feel shocked and flustered and confused and, weirdest of all, full of butterflies. "We are _never_ doing that again."

Aang sits a few feet from me and runs a hand through his own hair. He, however, looks accomplished and happy rather than shocked and confused. A small half smile is on his face. "Toph?"

I exhale sharply and look at him in embarrassment. "Yeah?"

He smirks lopsidedly at me and motions me to rejoin him. "Wanna do it again?"

I grin back at him and find my way to his side. He pulls my hair out of my ponytail and pushes my bangs behind my ear, his hand lingering in my hair. "I thought you'd never ask."

As I lean in to kiss my best friend again, I can't help but think that maybe Katara was onto something.


	2. Dreams

**Just another little Taang oneshot for ya'll. If you were wondering, Toph and Aang are about 20-ish in this oneshot. This one is more friendship than romance, but I did fit a little Tanag in there. I LOVE THIS PAIRING! ENJOY!**

**Disclaimer: I in no way own Avatar: The Last Airbender.**

* * *

_Dreams_

"_Dayum_ Twinkletoes! This food is outrageous!" Toph gives him two thumbs up with before digging into her plate again. Aang had prepared enchiladas in honor of Mexican dinner and movie night, an annual Friday get-together of the two ever since they were in high school.

Aang chuckles as he hangs the dish towel on the handle of his dishwasher. He tries hard to be a good cook, and having Toph appreciate his efforts every Friday always makes him feel good. "Thanks. I added extra hot sauce tonight; I know how much you like it."

Toph grins and says something that sounds like "You the man, man!", but the syllables drown in her half-chewed bite of her enchilada, sounding more like "You de meh, meh!"

Aang laughs again and takes her plate after she finishes her last bite. He places it in the sink, deciding to leave the last dish for tomorrow as he's anxious to begin their movie. "I try, I try," he jokes around his laughter.

He always has the most fun when he's with her. She knows how to let loose and have fun, and she isn't afraid to be herself around others. She'll burp louder than Sokka, pick the lint between her toes and in her ears, and tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. She's a bit rough around the edges, but Aang has the ability to mold with her hostile spikes. As a matter of fact, she's hardly ever hostile to him anymore, other than her sarcastic remarks and slightly painful "displays of affection".

"So what movie do you want to watch?" Aang asks her as she throws away her used napkin. She turns her head towards him and raises an eyebrow, the movement barely visible under her thick black bangs.

"Watch? _You_ can watch the movie. I'll have to stick with listening."

Aang nearly face palms as he remembers her ailment. Her large amount of self-confidence can most likely be due to is; she never has to worry about appearances, whether they be hers or of the people around her. Not that she looks bad. Her shiny midnight black hair is tied the same way it always is, in a loose ponytail, her bangs covering her pale green-grey eyes. As for her clothes, she's wearing a light green tank and black baggy sweatpants. She abandoned her neon green Adidas at the door when she arrived, leaving her in her mismatched socks. She's short for her age and thinner than most, but under her porcelain skin are strong, sinewy muscles. She has beaten up all of her guy friends, even Zuko and Sokka, and they're beefier than Aang, not that she can tell.

"Right," he mumbles as he rubs his head meekly. "You're blind."

She punches him in the shoulder and plops herself down on his couch. "Really? I never noticed."

Aang sighs and rubs his elbow before squatting down in front of his large collection of DVDs. "Your sarcasm isn't appreciated," he mutters, half to himself.

She grins wide and throws a pillow at his head with complete accuracy. "I wouldn't be so sarcastic if you weren't such a doof."

He jerks his head towards her and self-consciously smoothes out his shaggy black hair before remembering that she can't see. "How do you do that?"

Toph snickers and puts her feet up onto his footrest, not an abnormal action for her. "Your ears are so big that have their own gravity, that's how. Don't blame me; the pillow couldn't escape your ears' gravitational pull." Another pillow flies towards him, hitting him square in the face this time. "Yeah! Toph: two, Aang: zip!"

Laughing lightly at her antics, he tosses the pillows back on the couch. "So what movie do you want to _listen_ to?"

She puts her hands behind her head and crosses her outstretched legs. "Whatcha got?"

"Well," he starts as he runs his fingers over the large stack of DVDs, "we've _heard_ most of them...how about _Inception_?"

Toph cocks her head in thought. "Is that the one where people go into other people's dreams and screw with their heads?"

Aang nods. "Yup."

"Pop it in!"

Aang follows her instructions and grabs the remote before turning off the lights and plopping down next to her on the couch. "I've been meaning to watch this one. The idea of this movie made me think about how weird it would be to have my dreams invaded."

Toph's eyes fall and she turns away slightly. "Mhm, yeah."

Aang looks at her in concern and places his hand on her shoulder. "Sorry, Toph. If I offended you-"

"You didn't offend anybody, Twinkletoes," she interrupts with a slight edge. "You never do." She crosses her arms and turns even more. Aang knows she doesn't like to talk about her problems or what troubles her, but he wants to help, as always.

Aang mutes the DVD previews. "So what's the problem?" He asks lightly. She turns toward him, her vestigial eyes speaking more than a thousand words. She closes her eyes and sighs.

"It's just...I've always been envious of the dreams that all of my friends talk about. Beautiful things that they've _seen_, amazing and otherworldly things that happen to them in their dreams. But me...my dreams are different."

Aang cocks his head. "How so?"

She frowns. "You know how dreams are about some kind of stimuli that's in your subconscious? In your case, images, faces, colors, all that jazz."

"Yeah."

"Well in my dreams, things are different. I don't have images, faces, or colors in my subconscious. Because I'm blind, the only thing I have are sounds, emotions, and touches. My mind can't conjure up what it's never been subjected to, get what I'm saying?"

He nods, sort of mystified. She's never spoken so much about how her blindness affects her, because it hardly does. She does things as well as any sighted person, you know, except cooking and driving. She sucks at cooking (well, duh), and no one has ever let her behind the wheel of a car for humanity's sake. "Yeah, I guess I can sort of comprehend what you're saying. But I can't say that I understand it; I don't have 'blind dreams' like you do." He pauses before he asks, "What're they like?"

She sighs again and pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. "That depends on what sounds or feelings that my mind puts together; they're never the same. Usually I hear the voices of you, or Katara, or any of our other friends. When it comes to human contact, I usually associate it with who is speaking to me. Katara talks, a hand brushes my arm, I can only assume that it's her. You talk, someone high fives me, I have to guess that it's you." She stops for a moment, swallows, then continues. "But if it's prolonged contact, like a hug, I always know who it is."

Aang looks closely at her and tries to understand. "How?"

Toph twiddles her fingers. "Katara always wraps her arms around my upper neck, Hotness is warmer than most, hence the name, Sokka has a wide torso, and you have skinny arms."

Aang self-consciously rubs his arms and glares at her. "Skinny?"

She laughs. "Let's be real, Aang; they're like two pieces of spaghetti."

He pouts and crosses his arms. "Are not." He turns away then whirls his head around. "I work out, you know," he points out cockily.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," she mocks him with a laugh.

Aang scowls at her for a while, sort of stung, then remembers that she wasn't meaning to insult him. "So...what about your nightmares?"

She freezes, her face loosing whatever color it once had, making her look paler than ever. "I'd rather not dive into _that_ pool, thank you very much."

"But Toph," he objects in a slightly whiny tone of voice, "talking about our fears is the first step in overcoming them."

Toph puts her hand on her forehead, holding up some of her straight jet-black bangs and revealing her strangely beautiful eyes. "Well...my nightmares usually involve strange noises and voices of people that I've heard but don't know...and there's this one n-nightmare that's been recurring for a few months now..."

"What's it about?"

"Well," she starts cautiously, "I'm usually alone in a room for a while, then someone calls me for help. Usually it's you or one of our friends. They call me, saying that they're in danger and that they need my help to escape. I try to find them, but the room suddenly turns into a maze, and as I travel through the maze, their voice gets quieter and quieter until I can't hear them anymore. Then they suddenly scream out in pain, making me wake up." She swallows and pulls her knees even closer to her chest. "I always feel like whatever happened to them is my fault."

Aang's eyes widen in concern for his friend. She's never opened up like this to anyone, so her dream must have been terrible. "That sounds terrifying."

Toph nods slowly. "Yeah. It sucks." She sounds blunt, making Aang think realize that she's more than finished with the topic of her dreams.

"So," he says, feeling a bit awkward. "Should I start the movie?"

She turns her head towards him and shrugs, an unreadable message floating in her green irises. "Why not?"

Aang picks up the remote and raises it to the television.

"Wait."

He lowers the remote and looks over at Toph. "What up?"

She lets out a shaky breath and lowers her knees, letting her feet hang off the edge of the couch. "There's one more thing...it's about a dream that I had a few days ago."

Aang puts down the remote and adjusts himself so that he's facing her, giving Toph his full attention. "The maze one?"

She shakes her head. "No. In this one, I just heard a bunch of words that I'll never understand."

Aang scratches his head in confusion. "Like...gibberish."

Toph shakes her head again. "No. Words like 'pretty' and 'handsome' and 'beautiful'. Random voices were yelling out descriptive words and the names of different colors at me. I yelled at them to stop, but they just got louder. It was...torturous."

Aang still doesn't understand. How could such wonderful words be so painful? "How is it torturous?"

"I told you," she almost snaps," "I'll never know what descriptive words mean. I know that words like 'pretty' and 'handsome' apply to a person that is supposedly attractive, but how would I ever know? That's why appearances don't matter to me; I'll never know what anyone looks like! I'll never even know what _**I**_ look like, so why should I care?" She's almost yelling by the time she's finished speaking. She turns sharply away from him, but Aang swears that he sees a tear slide down her cheek.

Aang takes a deep breath and speaks slowly and softly, aware that he's on thin ice. "Pretty."

Her head whirls around before he can blink. "What?"

Aang sighs. "Toph...you're probably going to punch me into next week for saying this, but even though you don't try, know, or care, you _are_ pretty." Aang closes his eyes and raises his hand, expecting her to punch him even harder than when she gives him one of her 'love taps'. He grits his teeth in preparation for the blow.

He waits...and waits...but the punch never comes.

Suddenly, Toph's hand makes contact with his face, but she's not punching him, she's just holding his cheek. He flinches at the contact, then realizes that she isn't hitting him, and gets even more afraid.

Out of nowhere, two small lips peck him on his other cheek. In the next moment, the foreign warmth of Toph's seemingly delicate fingers is absent from his face.

Aang slowly opens his eyes. Toph is still next to him on the couch, but her head isn't facing him. He feels his cheeks getting hot.

"W-what was that for?" he asked, slightly scared at what she'd done yet feeling full of butterflies because of it.

Toph shrugs. "I dunno. Sweetness does it when she gets complimented; I just figured it'd be a nice thing to do." She punches him hard in the upper arm. "Way to ruin it, Airhead."

Aang rubs his arm and smiles sheepishly. "Sorry."

Toph grins and turns her head toward him. "It's okay. Knowing you, it was bound to happen."

Aang's smile turns genuine and he laughs. "Heh, yeah."

After a few moments of semi-awkward silence, Aang speaks up again. "So how about that movie?"

To his shock and displeasure, Toph stretches her arms up and yawns. "Actually, I'm kinda beat. Can you just drive me home?"

Aang pouts. "Why?" he whines. "We always watch a movie on Mexican food and movie Friday!"

Toph chuckles and punches him weakly on his shoulder. "So we'll watch two next Friday. Geeze Twinkletoes, do I gotta think of everything?"

Aang smiles and pushes himself off the couch, chuckling slightly. "I really hope not."

Toph follows suit and shoots him a semi-amused glare before stretching again. With her arms high above her head, her tank gets pulled up, revealing her firm stomach. Aang can't help but glance before grabbing his keys off of his key rack and slipping on his sneakers.

"Hurry Toph. The Aang Taxi Service doesn't wait for stragglers," he teases as he opens the door for her.

She sniggers and walks out of his house toward his orange Jeep Wrangler after puling her sneakers back on. "I would think he'd wait for his only passenger."

He laughs in response and opens the passenger side door for her before hopping into the driver's seat. "All aboard!" he says as he starts the engine.

Toph shuts her door and rolls her eyes. "I reiterate, you're a doof."

After a few minutes of driving, Aang pulls into the driveway of Toph and Katara's shared apartment.

"Hey," he says, sounding confused, "Is that Zuko's Harley?" He looks closer and notices that it is in fact Zuko's red and black motorcycle next to Katara's blue Volkswagen Cabrio.

Toph grins mischievously. "Sparky's here? Sweet! I can finally get back at him for burning my foot when he got out of control with his lighter."

Aang chuckles at the memory, thinking that Toph had already gotten him back enough with her repeated beating of his arm with a stick, but he doesn't voice his opinion. "Zuko's such a pyro," he says instead.

Toph sniggers. "He's lucky he has us and his uncle to keep him centered." Toph turns and open her door, about to get out of the car when Aang stops her.

"Hey, Toph?"

She turns toward his general direction, her bangs blowing in the nighttime wind. "Hmm?"

"I meant what I said, you know, about you being pretty."

Toph smirks lightly, her cheeks turning a slight pink. "Thanks Aang, but I already know. You're a pretty genuine guy. Not all that bad looking, either."

Aang grins goofily. "You really think s-" he narrows his eyes at her, his mouth now a flat line. "When will you stop doing that?"

"When you stop falling for it."

Aang's mouth upturns into a half-hearted smile. "So I guess, never?"

Toph grins at him. "Seems like it." She turns to leave the car. "G'night Twinkletoes."

Aang smiles back. "Good night." Before she closes the door, he stops her, "Oh, and Toph?"

She stops closing the door and leans back into the car. "Yeah?"

He leans towards her and plants a kiss on her cheek, stopping himself from laughing when her cheeks turn red.

"Sweet dreams."

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**Reviews make me write faster!**


	3. Old Friends

**I LOVE TAANG!**

**Okay, the season finale of LoK made me downright giddy. LIN GOT HER BENDING BACK! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!**

**The Makorra was a little strong, but whateves. I have nothing against it.**

**Anywho, I was inspired to write this oneshot after watching the finale. It takes place in the Spirit World, so yes, the characters are DEAD D=**

**ENJOY!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own AtLA or LoK**

**Btw, is it weird that I ship Taang and Linzin?**

* * *

_Old Friends_

She watches as the new Avatar places her hand on her daughter's forehead. She smirks as Korra's eyes begin to glow, restoring Lin's severed ties with the earth. Lin opens her jade-green eyes slowly, smiling at the feeling of her connection with her element returning. She revels in the regain of her power before performing her inherited art, rejuvenated after lacking her bending for weeks. She rose all of the stones around the White Lotus building high, making everyone around her stare in awe.

"She is truly your daughter."

Aang comes up behind her and sits next to her, turning his attention to the swirling water depicting the image of her daughter. He watches as Lin thanks Korra, then as Tenzin walks up to the young Avatar and tells her of his pride, calling her "Avatar Korra".

Toph smiles calmly. "And _he_ is truly _your_ son."

Aang looks on proudly before he runs his hand over the water, ending their view of the living. "You're welcome, by the way."

Toph turns toward him with an eyebrow raised. "What do you mean, 'you're welcome'?"

Aang crosses his arms smugly. "Well, if I hadn't restored Korra's bending, teaching her how to chibend in the process, Lin never would have gotten her bending back, or, at least not until Korra learned chibending from whatever giant lion-turtle is just lying around. Ergo, you, Toph Bei Fong, are in my debt. You owe me one 'thank you, your handsome Avatar-ness'."

Toph chuckles and pushes him playfully; Aang snickers as well. "How about shut up, your bald Avatar-ness?"

"Coming from you, something like that means just about the same," Aang responds with more laughter. He stands up and holds his hand out to Toph to help her up. She smacks his hand away, of course. He knew she would, but he always offers his help.

He notices her green kimono as she stands up. It's sleeves are long, even longer than her arms. It's tied just below her chest, and below the tie is a gorgeous golden design of the Bei Fong family's symbol: a flying boar. The design flows to the bottom if the kimono, the long fabric hiding her bare feet from view. He motions to her outfit. "I see you chose against wearing your metalbending uniform on this fine day in the Spirit World."

Toph shrugs. "I just got tired of the same old thing, you know? And since I can change my appearance at will, I figured, why not?"

Aang falls in step with her as she begins walking. By the route she's taking, he can tell that she's returning to her own personal heaven. "Well it's beautiful," after a slightly hesitant pause, he adds, "just like you."

Toph grins and throws a hard punch to his shoulder, her eyes, identical to that of her daughter, laughing silently. "You better watch it, Aang; I might have to walk in your wife's dreams tonight and tell her that you're complimenting other women in the afterlife."

Aang laughs. "You wouldn't." His expression turns serious and somewhat frightened. "You wouldn't, right?"

Toph sniggers. "Nah. That'd be downright cruel." She veers off towards the image of many steep cliffs, cloud-bare sky, and a whole lot of rocks. He stands and watches her approach the image of her own section of the Spirit World. "See ya, Twinkles."

Aang sighs in false-annoyance. "Toph, I'm 182 years old. Plus, I'm _dead_ for Yue's sake. Think you could stop with the nicknames?"

Aang can guess that she acquires a lopsided smirk. "'fraid not."

Aang watches in silence as Toph walks into the image of the canyon. He smiles lightly as she and the image swirl into a sparkly green mist-like breeze that flys in his direction. When in blows past his ears, he hears her laughter.

"See ya, Toph."

* * *

**Woah, all these dead-Taang feels.**

**I'll be back soon! No need to fear! The next with either be about AtLA world Bandits or modern day babysitting. WOAH.**

**And yes, I believe that after she passed on (...sniffle), Toph would be able to see in the afterlife.**

**REVIEWS MAKE ME GIDDY(er)**


	4. Bandit

**Soooo thanks for all your loving reviews! MOAR PWEASE!**

**OHEMGE I watched _Happy Feet_ the other day and almost passed out when Gloria called Mumble Twinkletoes. **

**And just so you know, I wrote this oneshot while listening to Panic! At the Disco's song "Lying is The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Shirt Off" on loop. SUCH A GREAT SONG. Very suggestive and contains a few cusses, but still MUY BUENO.**

**This oneshot takes place in the Avatar-verse. The questions that popped into my mind that prompted me to write this oneshot: What if Bumi _was_ Aang's earthbending teacher? Would Taang still be possible? (*cough*yes*cough*). If so, how and when would those kiddies meet?**

**Read dis oneshot to find out!**

**Disclaimer: ATLA © Bryke, not I**

* * *

_Bandit_

Hi there! My name's Aang. I'm a pretty big deal around these parts, that is, if you call mastering all four elements and beating the evil fire lord a big deal, then yeah, I'm a _huge_ deal.

I learned airbending from my caretaker and father figure, Gyatso, waterbending from my friend, ex-girlfriend (the breakup was mutual, by the way), and current Fire Lady, Katara, earthbending from my childhood friend Bumi, the king of Omashu, and firebending from my ex-enemy, prince-turned-traitor-turned-fire lord, Zuko.

I'm eighteen years old. When I don't shave my head, I have sort-of unkempt black hair. My eyes are a stormy grey and I like to wear orange and yellow robes. I also have blue arrow tattoos on my arms, legs, and head. All in all, I'm not your everyday, average guy. I'm th-

"Mr. Avatar?"

Bingo.

I tear myself from the view of the sunset from Fire Lord Zuko's study's balcony to see one of Zuko's servants walking towards me. He's short and plump, his red cheeks and slight breathlessness hinting at the fact that he'd rushed to get to me.

I smile politely at the portly man. "Ah, hello good Hotman. Is Zuko ready to see me yet?"

The servant's bushy eyebrows furrow at the name 'Hotman', but he continues, "No sire, but I have a letter for you from the law enforcing officials of Ba Sing Se."

I try to hold in my sigh and prevent my eyes from rolling. I'd come to the Fire Nation to avoid letters like this, but unfortunately being the only living airbender along with the Avatar makes it very hard to be incognito.

Instead of showing my annoyance, I hold out my hand to grasp the scroll in the servant's hand and say, "Oh really? Let me read it." He hands me the small scroll and I unroll it. Hopefully they just sent me a letter to thank me for my all my hard work, but I highly doubt it.

_Avatar Aang,_

_The Upper Ring police force and I have been having a large amount of _

_trouble with a local bandit. We have tried and tried, but this thief _

_is more elusive than ever imaginable. We would highly appreciate _

_it if you would come to Ba Sing Se and help us apprehend this felon._

_Sincerely, _

_Xin Fu and the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se Law Enforcement Officials_

I groan inwardly._ I should have known. They're just another group of men asking me to solve their problems for them. _"Not again," I complain lamely.

The servant looks at my reaction with confusion. "Sir?"

I run a hand over my bald head and release a deep breath. "Do you know how many letters people send me asking for my help with their petty problems?"

"I can't begin to imagi-"

"_Thousands_, Hotman. _**Thousands**_," I seethe, now standing over the servant threateningly. He cowers beneath me, seemingly ready to soil his robes.

I think my head may be about to explode when I hear a low chuckle. "Come now, Aang; isn't it your job to restore balance to the world?" Zuko enters the room in his full fire lord garb: shoulder armor, cape and all. The servant leaves just as soon as he enters, muttering obscenities under his breath.

I grin and grasp Zuko by his forearm as he grabs me by mine. I pull him into a hug and pat him on the back, rejoicing in the fact that we're finally the same height; it's such an improvement from six years ago. His traditional Fire Nation sideburns remind me of my current inability to grow facial hair, though.

We pull away and he grins right back at me. "Aang. Always whining, as usual. Though I do think you managed to make Li wet himself."

I laugh at the thought of the petrified servant, then frown and cross my arms. "Hey, if you got thousands of letters from people asking for help with everything from a minor rebellion to a broken cabbage cart, you'd complain too."

Zuko suddenly acquires a very serious expression. "I've gotten death threats."

I gulp and rub the back of my head. I'd forgotten that many people are still unhappy that Zuko acquired the throne after I defeated his father, Ozai. "Right...Well, you win, I guess."

Zuko doesn't smile. Instead, he just stalks to his desk and sits down, rubbing his scarred eye. "Mai sent a few."

I twiddle my thumbs and look around awkwardly. "Uhm..."

Zuko peers seriously at his desk then shakes his head a bit and says, "Never mind that. More about this letter. What's it about?"

I lean against the entry to the balcony and stuff the scroll into the waistband of my robes. "Some officials from the Upper Ring of Ba Sing Se want me to catch a bandit for them."

Zuko rests his chin on his fists and thinks. Then, out of nowhere, his index fingers shoot out and point at me. "I think you should go."

"What? Zuko, I'm already too busy to do all the things that I _have_ to do and-"

"Aang," he interrupts hotly. "I think you should go and help them to get your mind off of all the hard work and stress you've had to deal with lately. You could visit my uncle in his tea shop, and I heard that there'll be a festival there in a few days."

_Festival..._

Unable to hold in my excitement, I grin goofily. "A festival?"

Zuko smiles knowingly. "Go on. I'll cover for you."

0o0

"Avatar Aang, you have no idea how much gratitude we feel for your aid in our attempt to capture this bandit," Xin Fu says as he sits me down at a long table. His words sound forced, like he'd rather jump off a moving airship than be nice to me. He's a pretty beefy guy with olive skin and long, dark hair that shines even in the dimly lit police building.

I shrug. "It's my job. Oh, and do you know when the festival will start?"

He blinks, a bit taken aback. "In two days, I think. I'm not entirely su-"

"Will they have egg custard tarts?"

Xin Fu raises an eyebrow and frowns. "I believe so..."

I grin widely and jump high into the air, a victorious fist above my head. "Yes!"

He sighs and rubs his temples. "Avatar," he says, sounding slightly angry and even more forced, "the bandit?"

I stop my happy jump and turn towards him. "Right, right. Sorry." I make my most serious face and try not to laugh. "Proceed."

Xin Fu nods and rolls open a map of the Upper Ring. "Now, the bandit almost always strikes here," he points to a dot labeled 'Clothing Manufacturer', "or here," he motions to another dot labeled 'Food Market'. "Now Avatar," he says, his forced voice returning, "you must understand, the bandit-"

"Erm, Xin Fu?"

He lets out a deep breath. "Yes?"

"Does the bandit have any other known name than 'bandit'?"

He nods curtly. "Yes. He has also been referred to as 'The Runaway' and 'The Blind Bandit', though 'The Blind Bandit' is more widely used around here."

I cock my head. "Is he actually blind?"

"We're not sure," he says as he closes the map. "All we know is that The Blind Bandit is quick, elusive, and a very powerful earthbender." He rubs a part of his arm that's wrapped in a white bandage. "We've all got the cuts and bruises to prove it."

I gulp. "...So when do I start?"

For the first time, Xin Fu smiles. It's a very strange and almost sickly smile that seems all too natural for him. "Now."

0o0

After missing The Blind Bandit at the food market, (though it was obvious that he'd been there; the many throwing knives implanted in building walls and caravans that had missed the bandit as he escaped reflected that fact.) Xin Fu and a few of his men lead me to a quaint building with clothing visible through the open door. It's silent, and the bandit is nowhere in sight.

Xin Fu narrows his eyes and crouches behind the abandoned caravan that we're using for cover. "This makes no sense. The Bandit usually hits both locations in the middle of the month."

"Wait," I interrupt. "You've been able to track nearly all of The Blind Bandit's moves, but you _still_ can't catch him?"

Xin Fu scowls deeply. "Do you know the meaning of the word 'elusive'?"

"Right..."

So we wait...and wait...and wait. Almost two hours go by before any people even begin walking the streets: some fangirls that I have to duck and hide from to avoid total smothering, a mother and her child, and a portly baker with a cart full of freshly baked bread that smells heavenly and makes me realized that I haven't eaten in hours.

I look up at the cawing of a bird, but instead see a flash of black sprint across the roof of the clothing store.

"Xin Fu, I think I just saw someth-"

_**BOOM!**_

The earsplitting, loud sound of crumbling stone erupts from the clothing store, followed by a thick cloud of dust.

"The bandit!" Xin Fu shoots up from his crouch just as the black shape runs from the dust cloud. The bandit is slight: not all that tall, with thin, wiry limbs, and a burlap sack most likely full of clothing in his left hand. "Avatar! That's him!"

"I'm on it," I say as I use airbending to hop over the caravan. The black streak forces rock steps from the ground, leaps onto the nearest roof, then collapses the steps into a heap of dangerously unstable rubble with a flick of his wrist.

Carefully, I push myself onto the air over the crumbled earth and land on the roof. "Hey!" I yell at the retreating figure. I speed up with bending until I reach their side. "Stealing is wrong, you kn-" WHAM! A piece of rock hits me square in the chest, making me fall down so fast that I would have fallen to the ground had I not clutched the edge of the roof at the last second. The bandit chortles as he speeds away.

_Why didn't I bring my glider?_ I quickly regain my breath and balance and follow The Blind Bandit again. _How did he do that? It was like he...__**knew**__ I was coming up behind him._

"We don't have to do this violently!" I yell once the bandit is in hearing range. The bandit doesn't acknowledge me as he speeds up, hopping from roof to roof like an agile cat. Sighing in exasperation, I force a gust of wind into the bandit's back, making him fly into a nearby alley, dropping his burlap sac in the process.

I ride an air scooter down to the gap between buildings and see the bandit trying to regain his footing. He seems to be wearing a full body black ninja-esque suit that hangs a bit loosely near his chest, covering him from head to ankle, leaving his strangely small feet bare. I can see a seam at the base of his neck, so I can guess that the black face-cover is easily pulled off. There are no eye slots.

_So you can earthbend,_ I think to myself. My eyes dart to a nearby puddle. _But you can't waterbend._ Before the bandit can even think of running, I push him up against the building with a gust of wind and use waterbending to freeze his hands and feet to the wall with ice clasps. I think he curses, but it's muffled by the fabric of his face mask.

I grin cockily and pick up the burlap sac. "Now let's see what was so worth stealing."

I untie the knotted rope holding the bag closed, open the bag and see...children's clothes? The bandit, though smaller than any man I've ever met, would never fit in clothes this small. What would be the point of stealing them? Unless...he isn't stealing for his own benefit.

"Wha? These are for kids..." I look up at The Blind Bandit, perplexed and awed by his haul. He's currently struggling against his ice restraints. "Who are you?" I whisper.

Before he can respond, I walk towards him and pull off his head covering. I see a dark braid fall down to his mid-back, pale skin, a small nose...and that _he_ is actually a _she_.

I feel my mouth all but hit the ground. "You're...a woman?"

The girl scowls at me behind her long black bangs, her cloudy green eyes revealing that she is, in fact, blind, as her nickname suggests. "Yeah. What's it to you?"

I blink, taken aback. "Uhm...nothing I guess." _Woah...the bandit that I just thought was a man is actually really pretty._

"Who are you and what do you want with me?" She narrows her eyes at me, her sightless glare silencing me for a second.

I shake my head a bit and say in my most authoritative voice, "I'm the Avatar. I'm here to bring you to justice and put and end to your thievery."

To my surprise, she grins at my introduction. "The Avatar, huh? You're supposed to be all-powerful and wise and all that junk, right?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess."

"Well, Mr. Avatar, if you were so smart," she says before leaning forward and whispering in my ear, "maybe you wouldn't have forgotten to restrain my head."

I feel suddenly drowsy, lulled into a daze by her closeness and jasmine-scented hair. "Yeah, maybe...wait, _what?_"

Without warning, she whips her head back and head butts me so hard that I see stars. I fall backward onto the ground with an "Oof!" and look up just in time to see the bandit repeatedly thrust her head, earthbending a sharp rock into one of her hand clasps over and over until it finally shatters. She grabs a handful of the stone building and smashes her right foot free, then her left, and finally her other hand is free. The whole process happens before I can regain my grip on reality. She falls to the ground and cracks her knuckles at me.

"There we go," she says with a smirk. "This is much more comfortable." I should try to stop her, but I'm still sitting on the ground, holding my head so that the world will stop spinning. She earthbends her burlap sac back into her hand, grabs her head mask from my hands, and gives me a salute. "Not that I wouldn't love to keep on chatting with you, _Avatar_, but I have clothes to deliver." She hops onto a nearby roof with her earthbending, leaving me breathless and slightly blushing. I remember my assignment with a jolt.

I stand up and airbend myself onto the same roof she'd just escaped onto. I run as fast as I can until I see her braid flying wildly behind her. "Wait! Please, just return those clothes you stole!"

She speeds up. "Nah, I don't think I will. You could fight me for them, if you want."

I shake my head, my peaceful monk upbringing and an image of Xin Fu's wounded men crossing my mind. "I don't want to fight you! We can resolve this whole situation peacefully if you'd just listen to me!"

She laughs, the sound a mix between the twinkling of a wind chime and a wild cackle. "If you had any idea why I stole these clothes, you'd probably be helping me deliver them."

Without warning, she veers to the left and jumps off the roof. I skid to a stop and turn left, trying to follow her. When I finally land in the alley, she's nowhere to be seen and has left no visible trail for me to follow. I look from left to right, finally deciding on left when I see one small footprint going in that direction; it's not much, but it's all I've got.

I run down the left side of the alley, through a nearby marketplace, around a large government building and through as many streets as I can until I have to stop to catch my breath. I lean on a building corner, about to give up the search, when I spot the bandit's burlap sac sitting in front of an old looking wooden house, its contents visible as the girl left the bag open. I blink, realizing that I'd ran all the way into the outskirts of Middle Ring, almost on the border between the Lower and Middle Rings.

I peer closer at the house, realizing that it seems more like a run-down shack; vines are beginning to grow on its outer walls, the door has many cracks and chips in it, and the roof looks like it needed replacement five years ago. Suddenly, a middle aged woman opens the door, smiling in shock and joy when she sees the children's clothing. That's when I see them.

One, two, three, and eventually seven kids pop their heads out the front door, all looking dirty, hungry, and poor. The oldest of them can't be over ten years old. Their dirt-covered faces light up when they see the bag. I turn my ear towards them to hear what their saying.

"-Blind Bandit came today, Momma?" One of the girls asks, and I see that she's holding an infant wrapped in the cleanest clothes out of all of them, making a grand total of eight children. The mother clutches the bag in her right hand and smoothes her daughter's hair with her left.

"Yes, she did," she says with a smile. She whispers something to herself; I think she asked the spirits to bless the bandit's soul. She herds her children back into the house, handing one of her sons the burlap sac, and closes the door behind them, hiding herself and her eight children from my view.

"That was Nya."

I jump at her voice and turn around to see The Blind Bandit leaning on an old crate behind me, her arms crossed, her head covering in her hand. Her face says 'I told you so, idiot.'

I'm about to launch myself at her and try to capture her again, but my natural curiosity overcomes me. Plus, I'm not so sure that I want to fight her anymore. "Those can't all be her kids, can they?"

She shakes her head. "Nope. The oldest four are hers. The other four are her friend's children."

"Where's she?"

She pauses, as if hesitant to tell me, then sighs and says, "She died last year while giving birth to the baby."

I feel my heart get suddenly heavy. "What about their fathers?" By the look on the bandit's face, I realize that maybe I don't want to know.

She turns her head towards the ground. "They were earthbenders in King Kuei's army. They died during the war." She blinks, her jade eyes unreadable and almost hidden under her bangs.

I look back at the ramshackle house, suddenly realizing what it really is: the only safe haven for a poor widow, her children, and four parentless children who lost their mother no more than a year ago. I start to turn back to the bandit. "Now I see why you stole th-" I stop talking when I see that the only thing behind me is the old crate.

She's gone.

0o0

_Well...I'm a complete failure._ I slump, my shoulders low as I enter the Jasmine Dragon. I was called to Ba Sing Se to capture what Xin Fu described as an unruly bandit, but what I found was a caring young woman no older than me with a sharp tongue and some of the best earthbending skills I've ever encountered. And of course, as soon as I found her, I lost her. _And I never got her name._

About two hours ago, I'd been drooling at the smell of fresh bread. At this moment, I can't imagine eating anything, and I'm not sure why.

When I get halfway into the restaurant, Iroh walks out from the kitchen to greet me. "Aang! Always a pleasure!" He bows to me and I follow suit. He guides me to a small table with a view of the mid-afternoon sun. "I'd serve you myself, but we have almost a full house tonight, so one of my workers will be with you shortly."

I smile, already feeling better now that I'm in Iroh's restaurant. It's hard to explain, but the guy kind of radiates serenity and peace of mind. "No problem Iroh. We'll catch up later." He nods with a smile before walking back to the kitchen.

I sit at the table for a few minutes, twiddling my thumbs, spinning my marble with airbending, and eventually deciding on gazing out at the sky. I sense the server approach me, but I don't turn towards them immediately.

"What can I get you?"

I freeze in my seat at her voice. I turn around slowly and see that it's her, The Blind Bandit, standing before me in green shorts, a similarly colored sleeveless tunic, a tan-yellow belt around her waist. Her outfit is partially covered by her off-white apron. A metal armband adorns her upper right arm, a charm of the symbol of the Earth Kingdom facing away from her. She has green wristlets on both arms. Her black hair is now tied up in a high pony-tail, the end of it brushing the area between her shouler blades and her bangs are still hanging in front of her eyes

"Blind Bandit?" I ask, not sure if she'll pretend not to know me or just head butt me again.

Her green eyes widen and she shifts her feet, which I now notice are bare, hold for her green anklets. "Twinkletoes? What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to get tea from Iro-" I narrow my eyes at her. "_Twinkletoes_?"

She rolls her eyes at me and grabs me by the collar. "We're going outside. Now."

She pulls me up and motions for me to follow her. "Iroh?" His head pokes out from the kitchen at her call.

"Yes?"

Her hands curl into fists. "I'm taking my break." She turns toward me, her eyes narrowed and frightening, two dangerously beautiful orbs of green fire.

If she could see me, she'd see that I can't tear my gaze from them.

We walk outside the tea shop and around it until we're at it's back entrance. She swivels around so she's facing me, her arms crossed. "You have about twenty seconds to explain why you followed me here."

I cross my own arms at the accusation. "I didn't! I've known Iroh since before the end of the Hundred Year war. His nephew taught me how to firebend, for spirit's sake!"

She frowns, but seems to believe me. "That's fantastic, Twinkles. But you can't go around calling me 'Blind Bandit'. Nobody in there knows that I steal for that family, not even Iroh." Her fingers drum against the inside of her arm. "If he finds out I'm a thief, I could lose my job."

I shake my head. "I don't think so. Iroh would understand why you steal."

She turns her head towards the ground. "I suppose," she says, sounding a bit skeptical.

"Why do you call me Twinkletoes?" I blurt out.

She rolls her eyes and points to her bare feet. "Since I don't see too well with my eyes, obviously, I use earthbending to see everything around me by sensing the vibrations in the earth. Your footsteps happen to create very light and almost undetectable vibrations, ergo, I call you Twinkletoes." She blows a piece of her bangs away from her face. "Any more stupid questions?"

"Yes! I mean, no. I mean, I don't think it's a stupid question, but what's your real name?"

She narrows her eyes as if provoked. "Why should I tell you? You could go running back and tell that joke of a police force."

I feel a bit hurt that she thinks that I'd rat her out like that. "I'd never turn you in. That'd be more wrong than you stealing to help that woman take care of those kids," I say truthfully, then add, "besides, I'll tell you my name!"

"Since when did I care about your na-"

I interrupt, "My name's Aang! I like riding air scooters and taking sunset rides on my flying bison." When she doesn't immediately respond, I add, "Now it's your turn."

Her expression doesn't soften at first, but she eventually sighs in defeat. "Fine. I'm Toph. I like chucking rocks and I'm almost positive that I don't like you." She holds out her arms as if to say "Ta-da!", then she turns and starts walking away.

"Aw, come on. You don't mean that."

She stops walking but doesn't turn around. "Maybe, maybe not," she says, her voice flat. In the next second, she has me by my collar and has pulled me down so that my face is level with hers. "But let's get one thing straight, Airhead. If you decide to show up in my life ever again, you'll find yourself stuck underneath a very large rock." She lets go of me, gives me a punch in the chest that almost knocks me over, and starts walking away again.

I find myself grinning, somehow unfazed by her promise to squash me like a bug. "So...about this weekend's festival..."

She snorts as she leaves my view.

"I'll take that as a maybe!"

0o0 _Many Years Later _0o0

"And that," I say to the two 10 year olds in front of me, one with grey eyes and a bald head, the other with green eyes and long ebony hair, "is how I met your mother."

* * *

**Ta-da!**

**I'll update VERY soon, so don't you worry ;D**

**Also, I hope y'all will take a second and visit my Taang blog: **

**SCHMANKYA, and please review**

**-CCC16**


	5. Nightmares and Visions

**This is my longish Taang oneshot.**

**Disclaimer: Sigh.**

* * *

_He found so much joy in the fact that she let him hold her hand. _

_He had taken her to the swamp to show her where he'd originally "saw" her, about how she fled from him in her beautiful dress, her pet flying-boar in tow._

_The pair waded through the murky water, having already rolled their pants up to their knees to prevent them from getting wet. After a few minutes of treading through the shifty mud, she grasped his hand tightly in hers, then explained that "It's only because it's really mucky here and hard for my feet to see; don't get any ideas Twinkletoes."_

_The wandered through the swamp for hours, finding solace in each others presence, chuckling at the noises of the nighttime swamp, laughing in the face of fear._

_That was when the first vine snapped out with a crack and latched itself onto the wrist of his right arm. "It's okay," he told her when she questioned, concern in her voice. "Me and the swamp are old pals." SNAP! Another vine flew out and wrapped itself around his left calf before pulling him above the swamp floor._

"_Aang? This isn't funny!" She crossed her arms and turned his head in his general direction._

_He grunted as he pulled at the vines. He'd tried to firebend them, but they were too saturated with murky swamp water. He looked down at her, noticing thick white fog that hadn't been there a second ago._

"_Urf..I think the swamp is mad at me or something," he grunted as he tugged at the vines again._

_**It is not the swamp, Avatar.**_

_He froze as the voice flew into his ears and bounced around his head. "No," he breathed._

_The voice laughed. **So you do recognize me?**_

_Two more vines shot out of the trees, one constricting his right ankle, one his left forearm. "NO!" he shouted and tried to remove himself from the vines, finding that none of his four elements was sufficient enough to break the seemingly living vegetation._

"_What are you yelling about?" She asked from below him. She had not heard the voice; the evil spirit was in his head and his head alone._

_He didn't answer, he just struggled against the grip of the vines. _

"_Seriously Aang, what's going o-AHH!" She screamed as what felt like an oversized mandible pulled her down to her waist in the murky water. She screamed even louder as the claws began pulling her deeper and deeper into a different world, a world where her identity would be forever stolen. In this world, she would be completely and totally blind._

_Aang fought the vines. "TOPH!"_

_He fought and struggled and wrestled, but he was hopelessly tangled, rooted to his spot in the air, a place that was no longer safe for him, a member of the Air Nomads._

"_Twinkletoes? AANG!"_

_He felt tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. He forced himself to look down; he saw her gloved hand slipping through the fog and into the murky lake, eight of the horrid spirit's spider-like legs converging onto her small, dainty hand._

_The hand he'd just been holding._

_Koh laughed again. **It seems you have not learned much from our previous encounter...**_

_**...Avatar Kuruk.**_

_0o0_

"TOPH!"

He wakes up panting, his heart rate skyrocketing, flying so high it almost brushes hands with the moon.

The small lemur that had been sleeping on his chest flies up into the air and lands in a nearby tree, chattering angrily.

He clutches his robes that cover his chest, his heart threatening to burst through it with every beat. He sits up on a bed of white fur and rubs his head, petting the sky bison he'd been sleeping on when he realizes that his frightened scream woke the beast. As a matter of fact, Appa is not the only beast that he'd pulled from slumber.

He hears the door to her earth tent slam open. "What?" she seethes, sounding more than exhausted. He looks over and sees her stretching outside her tent in her green sleeveless tunic and similarly colored shorts that hang below her knees, a white belt tied at her waist, brown and white bands on her wrists and ankles. Her hair is tied back in a bun, her bangs in her face. She has three thin bands on her left upper arm: one made of hardened earth, one of sand, and one of metal. Each band represents the sub-elements of earthbending that she's mastered. Her space-earth bracelet is on the bicep of her right arm.

He leans towards her from his spot on Appa's leg. "What?"

She rolls her sightless eyes. "I'm _sorry_; did you _not_ just scream my name to the high heavens?"

Aang smiles sheepishly and rubs the back of his bald head. "Uhm...I did, yes. But only because I had a really bad dream."

Toph sighs loudly and falls to a sitting position on the ground. "Another nightmare?" What's that, the fourth this week?" He cringes at the exasperation in her voice, especially angry with himself for causing it.

Aang looks away. "It was the sixth," he mumbles, disappointed in himself for two reasons: One, he'd woken Toph up in the dead of night almost every night of the past week due to his nightmares. Two, he'd had six of these nightmares, the same one every time, and they still scare him more than Ozai ever did, not to mention the fact that he can't even begin to guess what the nightmares mean.

Toph blows a piece of her bangs away from her face with an angry huff. "Look, I know that you're the avatar and all, but can't you make your weird, prophetic dreams at least a little bit quieter?"

"...I'll try," he says unconvincingly.

She starts to crawl back into her earth tent. "Alright Twinkletoes," she says with a yawn. "Just try to sleep silently through the night so that _I_ can get some sleep." She stretches again before curling up on the ground. "G'night."

Aang looks over at her small figure, noticing how much younger and defenseless she looks when she's curled up in a ball, a content smile on her face. Then he remembers that she's sixteen years old, a master earth, sand, and metalbender, and could easily kick his butt into the next element of the Avatar cycle. But when she's lying in that way, it appears that she really hasn't changed in the past four years, even though it's obvious that she has. Her height, her skill, and her appearance all have changed. He rubs the growing stubble on his jaw; they both have.

"Aang," she growls suddenly, slightly muffled but still loud enough to make him jump. "Would you stop trying to burn holes through me and go to sleep already? I can tell when people stare at me."

Aang chuckles a bit, his blood rushing to his face. "Sure thing, sifu," he says as he curls up on Appa's leg, hoping for a dreamless sleep.

_0o0_

"LEAVE HER ALONE, KOH!"

Aang wakes up with a scream, throwing punches at the enemy that had just haunted his dreams before realizing that he's awake. He looks over and sees Toph glaring towards his general direction from her tent, bags under her eyes.

"Oops," he says, embarrassed.

Toph pushes herself up and stretches her arms above her head before collapsing her tent. "Yeah, _oops_." She frowns when she feels the tickle of heat on her back. "The sun is up, isn't it?"

"Yeah." He doesn't look at her as he wakes Appa up and climbs onto his head, tying his and Toph's bags to one of his horns before grabbing the reins.

She sighs before she rubs her eyes and yawns. "It's okay. I guess it's not _entirely_ your fault." She shuffles her way over to Appa and joins Aang on his head, slapping his hand away when he offers to help her up. "C'mon Twinkles. We've got rebels to beat up." Momo flies from the tree and lands on Toph's shoulder.

Aang half-smiles. "Yeah, let's go." He whips the reigns. "Appa, yip yip!"

Appa roars as he pushes off into the air. Almost simultaneous with the bison's leap, Toph's arms latch onto Aang's left arm. He'd left Appa's saddle with Zuko and Katara in the Fire Nation so that he'd have less weight to carry, much to Toph's annoyance. Aang doesn't really mind, though.

When they make it into the sky, Aang peers around for any sign of smoke coming from a campsite with red tents. For the past few weeks, he and Toph have been flying around the Earth Kingdom looking for Ozaians: small groups of people who still support Ozai's ideals even after he lost to Aang four years ago. Most of the time, the Ozaians are burly firebending megalomaniacs, not families and children. They could be left alone, that is, if they weren't always starting fires and riots in many areas of the Earth Kingdom.

Aang and Toph's job is to peacefully ask the Ozaians to stop supporting Ozai and accept the fact that Zuko has ascended to the throne. When they refuse, as they usually do, he and Toph have to forcibly change their minds. If they still refuse after they're defeated, they're sent to the Fire Nation to be tried for their crimes.

"Hey, Aang," Toph says above the wind, pulling him from his thoughts. "Who's Koh?"

Aang freezes, his knuckles turning white as they grasp Appa's reins much tighter than necessary. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, along with my name, you say 'Koh' a lot when you wake up screaming."

Aang sighs and loosens his grip on the reins. "Koh is one of the most evil spirits that has ever existed. If you show any sort of emotion when you're in his presence, he'll steal your face." He swallows and adjusts his hands that are suddenly stinging. "He stole the face of Avatar Kuruk's wife, Ummi."

She nods, her expression hardening in thought. "Have you ever thought that that may be why you're having these weird nightmares?"

"What do you mean?"

She shifts into a more comfortable position, her arms holding his arm tighter for a second. "Think of it this way: If Kuruk is your past life, then maybe you're just experiencing his fears in nightmare form. Maybe his fears never actually left his soul, and you just inherited them when the Avatar was reincarnated into you." He blinks, shocked by how wise she sounds. She must've been hanging around with Iroh the last time they visited the Fire Nation

He shakes his head. "That can't be right. Then I'd be seeing Ummi, not you." He furrows his eyebrows. "Unless...unless you and Ummi are connected like Kuruk and I are."

"You think that I'm a reincarnation of your past live's wife?" she asks as her cheeks turn pink. "Are you _nuts_?"

Aang cocks his head in confusion, then turns beet red when he realizes what he'd suggested. "No! I mean, not like that! I'm just brain bending(1) here, that's all."

Toph frowns, trying to make the color leave her face. She turns her face away from his view. "Right."

Aang keeps his eyes on the sky in front of him, trying to shake off his semi-awkward feelings. He looks to his right, purposely not the side that Toph is holding on to, and luckily spots a plume of smoke coming from the trees. He flies over it and sees a blob of red beneath the smoke, confirming the fact that it's an Ozaian campsite.

"I found one," he says, his voice flat. "We're going in." She holds on a bit tighter when Appa begins to fly downward, but still has her head turned away from him.

When Appa finally lands on the ground, Toph unlatches her arms and hops off, wiggling her toes, happy to be back in contact with her element. Aang can't help but think that she's happy to be unanchored to him as well.

He begins walking to the camp, Toph behind him. They've done this enough times to know the plan by heart: Aang asks for them to peacefully surrender, Toph roughs them up if they don't.

When Aang steps into the camp, the six men beside the camp fire turn towards him. Each of them have a distinct feature: a black haired man with a grey mustache and goatee, a man with an eye patch, a bald man with too many piercings to count on his left ear, an outrageously thin man with greasy brown hair, a very buff but very short man with a headband, and a guy that would look completely normal if a thin white scar didn't run from the inner corner of his right eye all the way down to the center of his chin, cutting through his lips.

"Hello, my good hotmen. You all probably can already tell that I'm the Avatar," he says as he motions to his tattoos. The men stay stoic as they stare at him, eleven golden eyes burning holes through the teenage Avatar. "Anyway, I've come to your camp to ask you to peacefully and serenely pledge your allegiance to the true fire lord: Zuko."

Grey-goatee speaks first, a husky and old voice coming from his mouth when he says, "Oh yeah? And why should we listen to you?"

Greasy hair nods in agreement. "Yeah. You're hardly more than a kid."

The short but muscular man grins, revealing that he's missing quite a few teeth. "A kid who deserves a beating." His hand moves to his waist, where an array of knives wait for his no doubt skilled hand.

"Aang," Toph says as she comes out from behind me, her hands behind her back. "Is there a problem here?"

"My only problem, little lady," Pierced-ear says, "Is that you're with him, not us."

Some of the other men holler and whistle in agreement, giving Toph the greasiest and, for lack of a better word, _hungriest_ looks Aang had ever seen. He narrows his eyes and curls his hands into fists, a strange emotion surging through his veins. He steps in front of Toph to hide her from the men's view. "Will you agree to stop supporting Ozai or not?" He hears Toph crack her knuckles.

Scarface chuckles. "You think we'll surrender to a child? I don't care how many elements you can bend, _boy_; any one of us could handle you with one hand tied behind our back."

Toph steps out from behind Aang's back. "Is that so? Then how do you explain your beloved Ozai losing to Aang with absolutely no hands tied behind his back?"

The man with the eye patch rolls his visible eye. "Stay out of this, Tiny."

Aang crosses his arms and shakes his head in slight pity. "You really shouldn't have said that."

Toph stalks up to him and pulls him down by his collar. "What did you call me?"

Eye Patch pushes Toph away and scowls. "Are you deaf, girl? I called you Tiny."

That's when his day went _really_ downhill.

Toph launches a rock up from the ground and into his stomach, making him loose his breath and fall face-down onto the ground. "It's called being vertically challenged, you _moron_." He looks up and opens his mouth to respond, but all that comes out is a gasp and an upsettingly week wheeze.

Toph says to Aang, "Don't worry about these idiots; I've got this." Then she turns toward the other men with her arms slightly bent, palms facing her: her usual preying-mantis form. "Who else wants some?"

The men all release battle cries and jump towards her. Aang gives them a solid minute before they're all on the ground begging a barely 110-pound sixteen year old girl for mercy.

They hardly even make it.

Toph sends another rock into Eye Patch's chin, effectively knocking him out when he tries to stand up. Greasy hair tries next, but she shifts the earth so that his legs tie around each other and make him trip, then she launches him far into the woods. The short yet muscular man makes out a little better, actually managing to swing at her with one of his knives before she buries him neck-deep in sand. Grey-goatee pulls a sword from a back-sheath, but as he swings it towards Toph, she bends it to the blade makes a strange 'U' shape, then sends him flying with a flick of her wrist. Pierced-ear and Scarface run towards her at the same time, but Toph lets herself fall into the ground just as the two men are a foot away from her, giving them no time to stop and forcing them to collide head on.

That was about 47 seconds. Maybe.

Aang grins as Toph reappears from underground, her usual smirk on her face.

"How long?"

"Under a minute."

Her smirk turns to a grin. "I expected as mu-" Her head whirls toward the forest a second before the greasy-haired man makes a reappearance. She punches her fists forward and sends a load of dirt at him, but she can't see the small, knowing smirk on his thin face. Aang doesn't realize until it's too late.

Just as Toph is pulling her fists back from sending the dirt storm at Greasy Hair, Eye Patch is somehow awake, standing up, and forming a lightning bolt. Aang barely has time to think about shielding Toph as he shoots it at her and hits the top of her shoulder, making her yell out in pain, her eyes widening as her flesh burns.

Aang pushes an intensely powerful gust of wind at Eye Patch, sending him spiraling backwards into a nearby tree. He doesn't look at Toph as he runs toward the fallen firebender, too fueled by rage and revenge, and also too unwilling to look at her charred flesh at the moment.

Aang holds Eye Patch's hands together and uses earthbending to make makeshift handcuffs, then pushes him to his knees. He holds a hot ball of fire right over Eye Patch's head. "Will you surrender now?" He asks, sounding angry, not like himself, otherworldly. Aang feels as if he's watching himself tower over the firebender with the eye patch, feels as if it's not him that wants so badly to give him a taste of his own medicine. The Aang standing over Eye Patch is a merciless monster, the type of person that Aang never wants to be, the exact type of person that Ozai was. It's not him; it can't be.

The pupil in Eye Patch's uncovered eye shrinks. "Yes! Yes, whatever you want!"

Aang extinguishes the fire and points to Toph, inwardly choking up when he sees her struggling in pain. He wants to give Eye Patch more of a lecture to be sure that he stops supporting Ozai's ideals, but an even larger part of him wants to end this conversation and go help Toph. "You see what you've done. This could have been settled peacefully." He glares at Eye Patch. "You disgust me." He breaks his hand restraints and pushes him to the ground. "If I ever hear of you committing Ozaian crimes again, I won't be as merciful as I am now. Now get out of my sight before I change my mind." He wastes no time in jumping up and running into the woods, the rest of the ex-Ozaians now conscious and following him, all promising to be loyal to Zuko as they retreat. Aang also wastes no time, but he runs in the other direction.

"Toph! Toph, are you okay?" He runs over and bends down next to her, examining her wound: a small portion of her upper left shoulder is dark red, showing him that while some lighting did make contact and went into her body, most of it just grazed her, taking quite a large weight off his sub-conscious. She rolls her head toward him when she hears his voice.

"Don't worry. It's just a little burn." She sounds groggy, like she's teetering on the edge of consciousness. However, her groggy voice can't hide her gritted teeth and the pain in her eyes; she's hurting much more than she'll ever admit. Aang thinks about helping her up and guiding her, but he decides to carry her instead. She picks up her right arm and punches him so weekly that it feels like she poked him with a leaf.

"No! Twinkles, I can walk by myself." Her argument becomes even less convincing than it already is when she lets her head fall against his shoulder. She says something about it being a little burn again, but the words are swallowed by the fabric of his robes.

"Don't worry, Toph. I'll help you just as soon as we find some-" he sighs in appeasement when he turns and sees a lake surrounded by rocks. A small waterfall is opposite him, falling into the lake with thundering splashes. "-water," he finishes.

He brings her to the edge of the land and sits her down on a rock. The walk to the lake seems to have woken her up a bit; her eyes are slightly more alert and her voice is more steady when she asks him what he thinks he's doing. He doesn't respond. He puts his hands into the water and bends some around his hands before looking closely at Toph's face. Her initial adrenaline rush has seemingly ended, so her face is pained and sweat falls in beads down her face. He can tell that she's fighting hard to hold back her tears. He brings his hands up and rests them just above her wound, letting the now semi-glowing water move around on her wound. Toph sighs in utter relief and lets her head fall forward until it lands on his shoulder.

"Where'd you learn this?" She asks weakly into his tunic.

He moves his hands around over her semi-blackened shoulder, all too aware of her head resting on him, her breath against the thin fabric covering his shoulder. "Katara showed me a few years ago. I'm not as good as her because I'm not a natural healer, but it does the job."

"Mhm," she agrees. "That's the stuff." She finds the strength to pull her head off his shoulder, her face now less than a foot from his.

"I'm sorry I didn't help you, Toph," he says as he moves his hands again.

She snorts. "How could you help? By taking the lightning yourself?"

He looks away from her sightless gaze. "If I had to, yes, I would."

"Don't be ridiculous," she says. But it's not Toph's voice.

Aang looks back up and is suddenly in a different world. He's looking at a beautiful young woman with tan skin, flowing dark brown hair, and grey eyes. He recognizes her from one of the faces Koh showed him four years ago. Behind her is an image of the sun setting behind a building made of snow, no doubt from the Northern Water Tribe. "You're not taking risks like that for me." The Water Tribe woman gives him a steely look to prove her point, but her smile is kind. Aang feels a distant part of him pulling towards her.

"Ummi?" His mouth forms the name, but Kuruk's voice says it.

"You talking to me?"

Aang blinks at the sound of Toph's voice and he's back at the lakeside with her, his hand still hovering over her shoulder, like he never left. "Um, no," he says, not entirely lying.

"Oh, okay." She sounds doubtful, but she doesn't press him on. Aang slowly moves the water out of her wound, making her cringe and curl her pale hands into fists.

"That's all I can do with the water; now I have to wrap it. Our medical stuff is back with Appa, so I'll have to carry you there." He holds out his arms to her, but she doesn't let him pick her up.

"I'm fine, Twinkletoes," she says stubbornly as she pushes herself up. "I can wal-ah!" She grits her teeth and hisses in pain when her right heel hits the ground, her knees collapsing under her. Aang catches her by her elbows and holds her up, frowning when he sees her balancing on the toes of her right foot.

"Toph," he says slowly, almost in a commanding tone. "Let me see your foot."

"It's _fine_," she says, not sounding very convincing. Aang tightens his grip on her arms and she finally sits back down on the rock and holds out her right foot. Aang bends down and holds it in his hands.

All the skin from her arch to her toes is fine, but on her heel is an asymmetrically shaped maroon wound much like the one on her shoulder, but much smaller, maybe the size of a copperpiece.

"So," she says finally, "what's wrong with my foot?"

Aang gently places her foot back on the ground "The lighting that entered your shoulder left your body through your heel. That wound will heal faster than the one on your shoulder, but you should stay off it for a while."

"So…you'll let me lean on you while I walk with my left foot?" She asks hopefully.

"No," he says, sounding much more steely and forceful than she'd ever heard him. "You'll swallow your Earth Kingdom pride and let me carry you."

"_Aang_-"

"_Toph_," he almost growls, his tone identical to hers. "We're not discussing this."

She scowls, trying to hide the fact that she's thinking. Thinking about how the past four years have changed Aang. Four years have made him more powerful, more confident, and more, well, _forward_.

She frowns in defeat and lets him pick her up, one hand under her knees, one around her shoulders, careful to avoid touching her injury. He lifts her up with ease, hardly straining himself. He's shocked by how little she seems to weigh. He always associates her with tough, sturdy rocks that couldn't be moved if they wanted to. Now that he's holding her in his arms, he thinks that she's light enough to be shifted by a passing breeze.

Toph crosses her arms, unsure about how she feels being in such a close proximity to him. "Happy now, Baldy?"

Aang grins, momentarily adjusting his grip on her as he starts walking back to Appa. "Ecstatic."

It doesn't take him very long to find his bison; all he had to do was retrace their steps back to the Ozaian camp then walk back to where they'd left him and Momo. When he lets Toph know that they arrived, she instantly wiggles in his grip, trying to break free from his surprisingly strong arms.

"Lemme go!"

"Toph, I'll put you down in a second if you'd just stop struggling!"

She whirls her head towards him, about to spit out a witty retort when her forehead makes direct contact with his chin.

"Ow! Watch it!" She hisses in pain, a small hand coming up to rub her head.

"Sorry," he says, sounding much more like his 12-year-old self. He walks closer to Appa and places Toph down so that her back is leaning on one of his legs. He leaves her for a moment to grab a roll of off-white bandaging cloth from his bag. When he returns he unravels a bit of the cloth and bends down to wrap he shoulder, so close that he can feel her steady breath against his ear. He's not sure why, but his heart rate picks up substantially, almost matching what it had been after he'd woken up from his constant nightmares.

He takes a shaky breath and continues to wrap her shoulder, trying to ignore the constant tickling on his ear. When he's almost done wrapping her wound, she suddenly rests a calloused hand on his chest. It's gentle, not rough or intending to hurt him. He feels as if his heart leapt into his throat, preventing him from breathing properly.

"You okay there, Arrow Boy? Your heart rate is through the roof." She moves her hand a bit, a concentrated and somewhat concerned look on her face. He finishes wrapping her shoulder and gently stands up, making her hand slide off his chest. He wonders why the spot where her hand had been feels suddenly cold.

"Yeah! Never felt better; no sir, I mean, no ma'am!" She raises a thin eyebrow, clearly not convinced. She opens her mouth to demand him to stop lying, but her response is intercepted when Momo jumps from Appa's head and lands roughly on her wrapped shoulder, making her almost yelp in pain. Aang swats Momo away with one hand, his concerned grey eyes never leaving the petite earthbender in front of him.

"Momo! Bad flying lemur!" Momo hisses angrily at his master before lying on Appa's back, wrapping his tail in front of his face. Aang puts a hand on Toph's healthy shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She shrugs him off and leans into Appa's leg. "Stop acting like my mother."

Aang clears his throat. "Sorry. I'm just worried about you, that's all." He leans about a foot away from Toph on Appa's middle leg, looking at the side of her face that's visible to him. Her black bangs hang over her face, her pale green-grey eye, unfocused and nearly covered by the curtain. "You should get some rest," he says softly.

Toph sighs, but she curls up against the bison's leg, her head now fully facing Aang. She's never needed to be told twice to take a nap. "Alright, _Mom_. No need to nag."

Aang chuckles and puts his arms behind his head. "Go to sleep. You don't want me to send you to your room, do you?"

She snickers, the sound muffled by Appa's fur. Aang stares at the clouds for a while, counting how many fly by, noting their shape, until he finally hears Toph's breath become even and steady. He glances back at her, seeing the almost fragile-looking girl she'd appeared to be the night before. They've never slept this close to one another before. He looks back at the midday sun, then around their campsite. It appears to be safe enough.

"Hey, Appa," Aang says quietly, "Roar if there's trouble, okay?" Appa groans quietly in response. Aang puts his hands under his head and takes a last look at Toph's wounded shoulder rising and falling as she breaths before letting his eyes close.

_0o0_

_Aang opens his eyes calmly, almost as if he's waking up from a restful sleep. He rubs his eye with the heel of his hand before he notices his surroundings: a peaceful, grassy hill under a clear blue sky, a few patches of wildflowers popping up here and there. He cocks his head to the side and observes the grass blow in the gentle wind, a tiger-bee fly through a bundle of flowers, when he hears a gust of wind._

_The sound comes from above him. Based on the volume of the wind, it's not a natural occurrence. He looks up and sees a blue glider circling the area above him. It takes him a few seconds, but eventually, he realizes that the glider is being manned by an airbender, more specifically, _**himself**_._

_He barely has time to get over the initial shock when a much smaller orange glider joins the first. The smaller flier is less sure of himself, shaky and uncertain as he makes jagged turns and either falls too low or flies too high. The other Aang lands his glider a mere twenty yards from Aang; from what he can tell, neither the other Aang nor the smaller airbender can see him. Aang can now see that the other him is older, taller, has more defined facial features, and...a beard? Aang rubs his chin absentmindedly._

"_That's it, son," the older Aang says as the younger airbender lands messily. "You're getting the hang of it already! I think you're a natural, just like your daddy." Older Aang adjusts his orange robe collar, a proud half grin on his face. _

"_Really?" The younger boy asks, a hopeful look in his grey eyes. He's adorned in robes very much like Aang had when he was twelve, but this boy can't be more than six._

_Older Aang leans down and rubs his son's bald head, much like any father would to their son. "Of course, Tenzin, and I'm so proud of you." Older Aang's voice is deeper and huskier in tone, but still airy in delivery._

_Tenzin smiles in happiness and hugs his father around his neck, making them both drop their staffs._

_Suddenly, just a few yards away, the ground starts to shake. A small, pale fist pushes its way from underground, then a shoulder, then a black-haired head, then the full upper-body of a six-year-old girl. Every visible part of her is covered in dirt, but her jade-colored eyes sparkle with achievement. "Hey, Dad!" She calls as she crawls completely out of the ground. "I did it! I tunneled underground!"_

_Just as soon as she's fully above ground, a larger hand of the same skin tone appears from the hole. The crevice widens, and a young woman pulls herself out from the tunnel. She has the same colored hair as the girl reaching all the way to her mid-back, but her light green eyes are covered by a thin sheet of grey. She brushes her bangsout of her face with a hand._

_It's Toph._

_The little girl runs up to older Toph and tugs on the bottom of her green shorts. "Did you feel it, Mama? I was earthbending!"_

"_Yes, I did, Lin." Toph clenches her fists and the coating of dirt flies off her and Lin. She brushes back Lin's hair with her hand. "You did a great job."_

_Aang is almost shocked by how much Toph doesn't sound like herself. She sounds...motherly. Almost like Katara._

_Lin walks up to Tenzin and crosses her arms smugly. "I bet I learned more from mom than you did from dad!"_

_Aang blinks. Older Toph is Lin's mother. Older Aang is Tenzin's father. He knows that for sure. But Lin just insinuated that she and Tenzin are..._**siblings**_. That would mean..._

_Older Aang walks over to older Toph and wraps an arm around her shoulder. He watches with amusement as their children fight over who learned more and who's closer to mastering their bending. Lin and Tenzin end up chasing each other around the hill, using basic air and earthbending moves to play-fight with one another._

_Toph makes a noise of amusement. "They remind me of us, you know, way back when."_

_Aang nods in agreement, his arm still slung over her shoulder. "I see what you mean." He looks at the side of her face, then back at the rambunctious children. He acquires a sly grin. "Betcha Tenzin will beat Lin."_

_Toph removes himself from his grasp and smirks, half amused yet half set-off. "No way. Lin'll kick Tenzin's butt." She crosses her arms and grins wide. "Just like I used to beat yours."_

_Older Aang puts his arms behind his back and turns to face her. "Is that a challenge?"_

"_You asking for a fight?"_

"_You supplying one?"_

"_Bring it, Baldy."_

_Aang laughs and launches a gust of wind at Toph, which she easily deflects with a rock wall she summons from the ground. Aang skillfully hops onto a ball of wind, leaving Toph's "view". He stops riding the scooter when he's positioned behind her, grabbing her elbows and turning her towards him. He wraps his arms around her waist to contain her. _

"_Hah," he gloats when she fails at wiggling from his grip. "I win."_

_Older Toph manages to get her arms free, letting her hands rest on older Aang's chest. "You cheated, you Airhead."_

_Aang pushes his forhead against hers. "Yeah? And how's the "esteemed chief of police" going to punish me?"_

_Toph pushes against his head with more force than he did to her, but not enough to hurt him. "You know what you get?" She tilts her head up so their lips are millimeters apart, then pushes him away with both hands, leaving him in a confused daze, his arms wrapped around empty air. "You get to rein in your children," Older Toph says evilly as she sits down and creates herself an earth tent to block out the sun._

_Aang looks around, then readjusts his arms so their crossed over his chest. "Okay, so when they're rowdy and rough they're my kids?" He tries to sound angry, but laughter is evident in his voice._

_Toph shrugs. "Hey, you wanted them, Mister "I have to repopulate the air noma-" she's cut off when Older Aang pushes his lips against hers for half a second, then dashes off after the still squabbling twins._

_Aang runs up to his children, a maniacal smile on his face. "Hahaha! I win!"_

_Toph leans back in her earth tent, not looking very upset about losing. "I'll get you back, Twinkletoes. Don't you worry."_

_Then, right before Aang's eyes, the scene starts to blow away. Older Aang, older Toph, Lin, and Tenzin appear to be sand flying in the passing wind that eventually dissolve, leaving Aang alone in the grass. _

0o0

Aang blinks, expecting to see the grassy hill, but instead sees the early morning sun rising in front of him. He looks over at Toph, flushing as his dream comes back to him. He can hardly believe that he'd dreamt that he and Toph had been together, gotten married, and had children. And yet, it didn't really feel like a dream. It felt more like...a vision. Of the future, perhaps? He shakes his head. There was no way. He looks back at Toph as she smiles blissfully. Although...

He blinks again, shocked by his on thoughts. "Hey, Toph. Time to get up."

Toph awakens, stretching her thin arms above her head. "Hey, Twinkletoes," she says with a yawn. "Did we sleep through the rest of the day?"

Aang looks again at the sunrise. "Yeah, but I think we also slept all the way until the next day. It looks like the sun is just starting to rise."

Toph nods slowly, looking almost shocked. "Huh. No nightmares, I guess?"

Aang cocks his head to the side. His nightly horrors didn't even cross his mind. "Nope." He looks at Toph and sees the older version of her: long hair let down and blowing in the wind, a playful glint in her eyes as she listens to her children play-fight. "Not even a dream." He prays that since their not lying on the earth, she can't tell that he's lying.

Toph raises her eyebrows in surprise. "That's good. I actually got to sleep pretty well." She rubs her wrapped shoulder. "My burn hardly even hurts anymore."

Aang nods in agreement. He can't remember a time that he'd slept so easily or so long. In fact, for the first time in what felt like ages, Aang had had a restful night's sleep.

He and Toph stand up, stretching their arms above their heads. Aang lets his hand fall onto the back of his head as a question burns a hole in the back of his mind. "So Toph, I'm just asking a stupid question here, but if you ever had a daughter, what would you name her?"

He expects her to punch him for asking such a ridiculous and personal question, but instead her face scrunches in thought. "Uh...probably Lin." Finally, she launches her fist against his arm. "Why do you ask?"

Aang feels his heart skip a few beats as he rubs his soon-to-be-bruised arm. When he calms down, he watches the early morning sun reflect perfectly off of Toph's unseeing eyes, the soft breeze blowing her bangs, the easy smile on her face. He finds himself smiling along with her.

"No reason."

* * *

**OHMERGERD. Did you like this especially long one-shot? I did.**

**(1): I bet that back in the Avatar-verse, they might have said brain bending instead of brain storming.**

**Yes yes, I know that I killed Linzin. But it was for the sake of Taang!**

**Anywho, after I'm finished with my Adventure Time fanfic called "Other Girls Out There" (I call it OGOT, and I'm having a major mental block with it), I plan on writing an ATLA fic about what the world would be like if Aang had _lost_ to Ozai. No, he didn't die, he just ran away when he was unable to go into the avatar state. Eventually, the Gaang would meet bck up 10 years later and try to defeat Ozai again. TAANG FO SHO. Maye by the time I upload my next Taang oneshot, I'll be able to give y'all a preview of the fic. I'll try to finish OGOT fast, don't worry.**


	6. Drowsy

**Sorry for taking so long to add another oneshot to my collection!**

**Disclaimer: err…no.**

* * *

_Drowsy _

In the past two hours, Aang's home was transformed from an average suburban home housing a young man and his adoptive father to a party headquarters for a handful of college kids.

A banner hangs from the railing of the steps leading upstairs to the top of Aang's ancient TV set, the bright green letters on it wishing a happy 21st to Aang's closest friend. Stacks upon stacks of red cups sit on the collapsible table set up in the living room, along with a few soon-to-be-filled chip bowls and various alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. A few balloons rub up against the ceiling, having been filled up with helium just half an hour earlier.

"Do we have everything?" Aang calls to the older girl pulling chips out from the cabinet.

Katara walks to the table and pours the entirety of the bag or corn chips into one of the bowls. She crumpled the empty bag and says, "I think so."

Aang shakes his head. "I need you to KNOW that we have everything," he asserts seriously. He turns on his heels and observes the banner with something like determination in his eyes. "Toph's party has to be perfect," he proclaims.

Katara smiles knowingly at the shaggy haired man, crossing her arms somewhat smugly. "And why is that, Aang?" Her question isn't really necessary, being that she knows EXACTLY why Aang cares so much about Toph's birthday; she just wants to tease him.

Aang turns towards her, his eyes searching the room for another set of ears. Thankfully, Zuko has yet to arrive, and Sokka just left to pick up his girlfriend, Suki.

"You know why," he whispers despite the empty house, heat filling his face.

Katara chuckles, her blue eyes shining. "Don't worry so much. I'm sure everything will be fine," she reassures him with a kind smile, talking about more than the party.

Aang returns the smile. "I hope so."

A few years ago, Aang would have found himself in a completely different situation, with Toph being the girl helping him plan something big for Katara. But thankfully, Aang grasped reality and his high school crush quickly faded, leaving behind a trusting and compassionate relationship with a friend he can always count on.

"So what time are you going to get her?" Katara asks as she fills another bowl, this one with flavored potato chips.

Aang checks his watch. "I told her that I'd pick her up to "hang out" at around seven, so I'll be leaving in about ten minutes."

"Yo yo yo, Sokka in the house!"

Aang rolls his eyes at the obnoxious entrance of Katara's older brother, but is smiling nonetheless. He turns and sees Sokka bursting through his front door, Suki close behind.

"Sokka," the auburn-haired girl scolds, sounding annoyed. "Must you make a scene whenever you enter a room?"

Sokka raises an eyebrow and grins slyly at his girlfriend. "It's all part of my charm."

Suki scoffs and pushes past him to get into the house, placing her purse on the couch. "Why I fell for that "charm" I'll never know," she mutters under her breath, but the smile is evident in her voice.

Aang checks his watch again, the motion almost obsessive. "I'm gonna go leave to get her now," he informs the rest of them, anticipation lining his tone.

To his displeasure, Sokka nudges him with his elbow, eyebrows raised and lips puckered as he makes the cheesiest kiss noises. "Go get her, ladies' man," Sokka teases, keeling over in laughter when Aang's face deepens in color.

"I thought you said that you didn't tell anybody else," Aang accuses Katara, embarrassed more than he's ever been. He feels like a timid high schooler all over again, like he's gone back in time and is nothing but a silly kid with a crush.

Suki says, "She didn't have to; we've all known for quite some time."

Aang turns toward her suspiciously, his car keys clutched between his palm and fingers. "How long is "quite some time"?"

Suki half-smiles meekly. "The whole time," she admits with a sheepish shrug.

Aang's jaw goes slack and he raises his arms up in disbelief, face redder than the world's ripest tomato. "I can't believe this!" He exclaims, sounding more shocked than angry.

A knock sounds at the door, and a hot-faced Aang tells them to come in.

"Hey everybody," Zuko greets with a small wave as he walks in the door, a gift bag in his hands. He catches Aang's eyes and looks at him, perplexed. "What are you still doing here?" He asks, sounding genuinely curious. "Shouldn't you be put picking up you-know-who?" Zuko adds with a small wink of his scarred eye.

At that comment, Aang's stormy eyes all but bug out. He sputters for a moment, seemingly at a loss. He looks at each of his friends in turn, a strange expression on his face, angry mutterings spilling from his mouth, he eventually throws his arms up and stalks to the door, red in the face. As he walks out the door and to his car, he finally manages to get a sentence out:

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

**0o0**

Aang pulls into Toph's driveway just five minutes after pulling out of his own, the drive just barely long enough for the color to leave his face. He turns the car off after coming to a stop, takes a deep breath, adjusts the collar of his button up shirt and the hem of his beanie, and steps out of the driver side door.

Toph's house is average sized, with two bedrooms, one of which has been turned into a TV room, a kitchen and a bathroom. During high school Toph's parents paid for everything despite Toph's attempts to take care of herself, so when they finally let her get a job at sixteen she pocketed all her money, eventually saving up enough to give the elderly widow moving out of the house and into a retirement home a decent amount of cash. After that, she saved even more money fixing the old shack up. Now that it's respectable, Toph can save her money towards her tuition, or at least the half her parents will allow her to pay.

At the door, he notices a significant lack of light coming from the windows of her house. He knocks patiently on her door before returning his hands to his pockets.

He checks his pants self-consciously, sending a silent thanks to god for letting him get through a day without staining his khakis. He makes sure that his sweater is smooth before standing up straight and clasping his hands patiently.

Aang becomes a bit apprehensive when Toph takes more than five minutes to answer the door, so he knocks again. From somewhere inside he hears an agitated "I'm coming!", making his mouth curve in a half smile.

The door is pulled open, and Aang sees the exact opposite of what he expected. Toph stands before him as the essence of homebody-ship, in sweatpants and a camisole, the clinging top loosely covered by a flannel that was obviously thrown over her shoulders to make her decent enough to open the door. The flannel hangs slightly off on one side though, so Aang can still see one nearly bare shoulder and the way the undershirt hugs her thin torso, bringing a slight warmth to his cheeks.

Toph, however, seems even paler than usual, her face pallor hold for the red tip of her irritated nose. Glasses that Aang didn't even know she possessed sit atop said nose, and for reasons Aang can't begin to guess Toph's usually ponytailed hair now hangs over her shoulders, the longest black waves brushing the middle of her thin bicep.

Toph smiles slightly at his arrival, looking what Aang can only call indescribably adorable. "Hey there, Twinkletoes," she greets nasally, breaking off to sniffle. "What're you doing here? Don't you know I'm trying to die?" Her small smile grows at her joke, but is broken when she turns and brings the crook of her elbow to her face just as the high pitched sneeze escapes her mouth.

"Bless you," Aang says without any sort if hesitation.

"Ugh, thanks." Motioning for him to follow, Toph walks farther into her home. Aang is shocked right up front by the insane amount of tissues lying on her coffee table, next to a steaming mug. A blanket is lying on her couch, obviously discarded. The television is paused in what appears to be a murder scene of some kind of horror movie.

"So..." Aang starts, watching her pick up her mug and lean against the back of the couch, facing him. "Did your tissue box explode?"

Toph chuckles dryly, her green eyes indifferent. "I wish." She takes a quick sip from her cup and sniffles. "My allergies are really acting up," she informs Aang with a frown. Toph pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, an action easily described as nerdy yet adorable, before looking Aang up and down. "Why did you come here?"

Aang blinks, confused. He finds himself scratching his neck as he replies, "We're hanging out tonight, remember?"

She cocks her head to the side, honest confusion floating in her irises. "You didn't get my message?"

"Er, no?"

To his immediate displeasure, Toph shakes her head. "I don't feel up to doing anything tonight, if you couldn't already guess that by my state of dress," she states, motioning to her odd correlation of clothing.

"But it's your birthday," Aang objects with a slight pout. "You can't be alone on your birthday."

Toph points to the television screen depicting a masked killer. "I'm not alone; I've got my buddy Jason here to keep me company." She smiles half-heartedly, but Aang won't hear of it.

"But that's no fun," he argues dismissively.

"Maybe not for you, scaredy cat," she teases nasally. She knows how much Aang hates horror movies.

Aang scowls. "Don't change the subject, Toph."

Toph waves him off, choosing to swallow more tea rather than answer him.

Aang pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales, still at a loss as to how such a tiny, congested woman could still manage to be so infuriating, but at the same time, can make him care too much to STAY mad. "Couldn't you take some of your allergy pills?" He suggests weakly, hope dancing behind his words. He was really hoping to give Toph a good birthday, or at least one that doesn't involve televised serial killers.

Toph sighs, eyes trained on her impossibly small feet. "I could," she starts. "But they make me way too drowsy. I was going to before, but I kind of got caught up in my movie," she admits with a sheepish grin.

"Well...why don't you take some now so we can hang out for a little while?"

Toph drums her fingers against the side of the mug. "I could do that I guess, but I wouldn't be able to stay up too late at the party."

Aang immediately bristles. "Party!? W-w-what are you talking about?"

Toph scoffs, horribly beautiful eyes rolling. "Please, Twinkletoes. I knew you were going to throw me a party before you did."

Aang's jaw goes slack. "Is...is that even possible?"

Toph smirks behind the mug now raised to her lips. "I know you, Twinkles. Probably better than you know yourself."

Aang isn't positive regarding the reason why, but a ridiculous smile creeps onto his lips and his heart bangs against the inside of his ribs, threatening to burst through its restraints. "Yeah, well," he manages. "I guess we know each other inside and out at this point."

Toph's budding smile grows, eventually blossoming into a grin. "I suppose we do," she agrees with laughter twirling around her voice.

Aang's eyes light up. "So you'll come?"

Toph smirks her trademarked smirk, looks him straight in the eye, and says, "No."

"Aw, c'mon!" Aang complains, sounding nearly beyond pathetic.

His response, for an intangible reason, ignites something within her. "Look," she almost growls. "If you think you could go through a day of coughing, sneezing, blurry vision, and snot rockets the size of your nose and still have the drive to party, I salute you." To probe her point, she even raises her hand and gives him a traditional military salute. "But if you'll excuse me, I have a murderer to cheer on." with that definitive statement, she walks herself back to the couch, sits down, and unpauses her movie. Aang hears her sneeze again, followed by what sounded like a congested curse.

Aang looks at the back of his best friend's head and ponders his next handful of words. With a sigh of defeat, he says, "Fine." He walks over and stands next to the couch. "If you won't leave," he breaks off and sits on the small open space next to her. "Then I'll stay."

Toph purses her lips, the exhale that follows making them vibrate as of she's blowing a raspberry. "You're a determined little sucker, aren't you?" She asks without looking away from Jason's machete.

Aang grins wide. "A girl once taught me to never give up and always face my problems," he explains.

Toph chuckles. "If you wanna stay," she starts casually. "Then you can." She turns towards him and looks him seriously in the eye. "But I'm not turning my movie off."

Aang shrugs, being that Toph has already forced him to sit through every Friday the 13th released in America.

"I wouldn't expect you to."

**0o0**

"Uhmmm...got any fours?"

Behind her hand of cards, Aang can recognize the beginning of Toph's wicked smile.

"I hope you've got your pole, Twinkles," she starts evilly.

Aang furrows his eyebrows at his hand. "Monkey feathers!"

"Cause you're goin' fishing!" Toph finishes with gusto, cackling in victory. Her voice has cleared up considerably, being that after the end of her movie and Aang's persistent badgering she finally took her pills. Now her laugher is clear and crisp and her nose is much less red. She opted out of putting her contacts in, however, so her glasses still sit on her face, a fact that Aang has no argument against.

"Darn!" Aang complains, frustrated. He and Toph have played every card game they know, from poker, to b.s., spit, war, and now go fish, but Aang has been unable to win in any one of the different games. "How are you so good at playing cards?"

Toph shrugs, but her expression remains smug. "It's a gift." she glances at her last card then back at him. "Got any sevens?"

Aang scans his rather large handful of cards, flicking the seven of spades at her with clear frustration. "Dammit!"

Toph laughs out loud, a chiming sound that Aang has recently found himself reveling in.

She puts her last match out in front of her, calls the game quits, then gathers both of their cards off the couch. They sit cross legged across from each other on the leather sofa, using the middle cushion as the center for each card game. Toph's iHome sits on the coffee table where all of the tissues used to be, the speakers playing whatever song comes up in the shuffle of her iPod. At the moment, it's something from one of the many heavy metal bands Toph admires. For Aang's sake, the music is set at a very low volume.

Aang's phone has been vibrating nonstop, the device becoming so bothersome that he eventually turns it off. Aang just tells her it's a faulty alarm, but he knows it's agitated texts and voicemails from his friends that were expecting him back at his own house hours ago.

Aang has to admit, he's having just as much fun with Toph just sitting on her couch playing card games as he would have had at the party he'd planned. Toph will never say it, but she's enjoying this much more than she'd been enjoying sitting alone and watching people get killed in various ways.

She sets the cards on the table and turns back to Aang, the ghost of her smile still on her mouth. Aang realizes that it's these milliseconds of time that he gets to study her naturally pretty face without fear of apprehension that has helped him fall faster down a very steep hill of emotion.

"You want anything?" She asks as she climbs over the couch and walks to her kitchen, unknowingly being followed by a pair of grey eyes. "I'm getting some water."

Aang blinks. "Oh, I'll take some water too, thanks."

As she leans into her cabinet for two glasses, Aang unconsciously checks his breath, inwardly retching at the smell and popping one of his emergency Altoids into his mouth. He's been conjuring up all kinds of courage to be able to do what he plans to do tonight, not to mention he's gone over the words he plans on using time and time again, pretending his monstrous dog Appa was Toph while practicing his confession. He will NOT allow bad breath to ruin it for him.

Not that he thinks anything like THAT would happen. A guy can hope, but...with a girl like Toph, anything beyond hope is ridiculous.

"Ehem, is anybody home?"

Aang looks up from his hands and sees Toph back on the couch across from him, a glass of water extended towards him. "I've been calling your name for a solid minute now."

Aang coughs awkwardly and takes the glass from her hands. "Oh, sorry," he apologizes nervously with a slight laugh.

Toph rolls her eyes. "You're a strange kid," she concludes, but her smile is evident. She silences her iPod and turns herself so she's facing the television, her body mere inches from his. "Wanna watch some mind numbing television?"

Aang laughs. "Of course." He hands her the remote and turns so he's facing the same way as her. He throws a casual arm over the back of the sofa, something he's no stranger to doing but at the moment seems to mean something slightly different to him.

Toph flips around the channels until she settles on an old sitcom that neither one of them can name but most certainly remember watching at one point or another.

The plot of the episode becomes quickly evident. It's the season finale: One of the main characters is conflicted as to whether or not he should ask his girlfriend to marry him. Aang isn't really paying attention to the show, being that he's all but focused on the side of Toph's face visible to him. He brings his water to his lips, eyes still trained on the object of his more recent affections and frustrations.

"Well do you love her?"

Aang almost spits pit his water at the one line of the show his ears chose to tune in on, making him cough deeply as the water flows down the wrong pipe.

Toph turns towards him at the sound of his violent coughing. "You okay?" she asks with a raised eyebrow, seemingly concerned yet still as indifferent as always.

Aang hits his chest with the side of his fist and coughs one last time. "Yeah," he half-lies as he takes another, calmer sip to soothe his throat as well as his nerves. "I'm just groovy."

Toph chortles. After taking a sip of her water, she says, "Friendly reminder: dying on my couch is punishable by rebirth followed by a far more painful second death."

Aang laughs airily. "I'll keep that in mind."

He observes the amused upturn of her lips, the actor's unfortunately timed line spinning around his head. He's never quite thought about love before. Strong feelings of attraction and connection, sure, but full-on love? Not really. Aang had always hoped to fall in love one day, and it hadn't really occurred to him until then that that's what he could be feeling; maybe just maybe, something more is brewing.

The show goes on predictably, with the couple in question getting engaged and being completely overdramatic about it. At some point during the hour-long marathon, Aang feels the slightest weight fall onto his left shoulder. He looks with his peripheral vision and confirms that it's Toph's head resting ever so lightly on him, making his blood boil, evaporate, and freeze all at the same time. Toph is silent for a while, clearly calm and possessing nothing snarky to say, a rather odd position for her to be in. As the show nears its end, something tells Aang that the time has arisen.

It's time to drop what he has affectionately named the Atophmic bomb.

"Toph," Aang begins with a twinge of nerves and a boat load of uncertainty. He pauses despite the fact that he doesn't expect her to answer, as she probably assumes that he knows that he has her undivided attention. "I've known you for a really long time now. You've always been there for me, despite the fact that I'm a bit whiny and more than a bit geeky."

Again, to her credit she remains silent.

Aang clears his throat. "Anyway, I just want to tell you that while you're clearly my closest friend, i've been thinking more and more about our relationship lately, and I think we have already passed that mark." he swallows. "I think," he hesitates. "I think we could be way more than that."

He continues without stopping to breathe:

"You see, I care about you way more than I should," he admits with a small smile. "I get worried when you don't instantly text me back, i call you constantly with no motive other than to hear you talk, and I tell you the stupidest things just to get you to laugh, but you usually end up punching me instead," he laughs at the memories, his left upper arm tingling at the thought.

"Now I'm just babbling," he adds. With a conclusive sigh, Aang finally spits out what he's been sitting on for over a year: "What I really want to say, Toph, is that I love everything about you, and I think we should take the next step in our relationship."

The contents of his heart, now floating aimlessly in the air, are met by utter silence. Not awkward silence, or uncertain silence, or even pondering silence. It's just...silence.

Then he hears it: the most feminine, near-silent snore on the face of the Earth.

Aang could almost slap himself. Here he is, clutching the fabric of his pants, sweating like a madman, pouring the contents of the deepest catacombs of his inner soul to a sleeping woman.

"Well," he says, still shaking from the oddly distributed weight of his feelings. "You did say that those pills would make you tired."

Aang leans over and sees that she is, in fact, sleeping: eyes closed peacefully, lips slightly parted as she breathes, every other breath dragging with it a nearly unnoticeable snore. Of course, her head falling onto his shoulder must have been due to her neck going slack as she fell asleep.

Nevertheless, Aang revels in their closeness. taking slight advantage of her sleeping form, Aang brushes her bangs behind her ear, smiling when her face is revealed.

Not wanting her to spend the night on the couch, Aang gently wraps an arm under her skinny legs and around her shoulder blades, getting a whiff of her shampoo as he lifts her up. "Let's get you to bed," he mumbles to the resting woman, sure she won't wake up because of the power of her allergy medication.

Making the ride as smooth as possible, Aang carries Toph across the house and into her room, depositing her lightly onto her bed and pulling the covers over her shoulders without waking her. He hovers over her for a second, awed by how peaceful and calm she looks while she sleeps, a look so contrasting to her usual sarcastic smirk and joking eyes.

So moved by the sight, he brushes her bangs aside again and presses his lips to her forehead for half a second.

"Goodnight," he says softly as he walks backwards out of her room. "Maybe next time I'll make sure to tell you how I feel while you're still conscious," he adds to himself.

He steps out of the room, rolls his eyes at himself for almost forgetting, then instantly turns back and sticks his head into the doorway.

"Happy birthday, Toph."

* * *

**Ohhh my babies *dies***

**Reviews are always welcome and appreciated **


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